Labrinth has been a mystery to me since the beginning of his career: so much talent, but the result of this talent is very often overproduced works that don’t know exactly where they want to go between experiment and the mainstream stage and tend to fray rather than bring the worlds together. However, this did not hinder the career advancement of the musician, who was born in London as Timothy Lee McKenzie in 1989. On the contrary: the Londoner first wrote and produced for others such as Tinie Tempah and Professor Green, and later also for Rihanna, The Weeknd, Beyoncé, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj.
His own rise began with the first solo album ELECTRONIC EARTH (2012), and in 2018 he founded a supergroup with Diplo and Sia (the resulting album didn’t matter, but even that didn’t matter). IMAGINATION & THE MISFIT KID followed in 2019 and, above all, perhaps the biggest commission of his life: he became the composer for the internationally incredibly successful HBO series “Euphoria”. The third album ENDS & BEGINS followed in 2023, he performed at the Coachella Festival, made more soundtracks, and a feature with Billie Eilish followed last year.
This first act of Labrinth’s cosmic opera holds nothing back
So it works for him. But critical success has so far eluded him – perhaps because, despite all his talent, it was never really clear where Labrinth was heading. Into mainstream pop? Or maybe an experiment? The two shouldn’t actually be a contradiction, as Charli XCX and Rosalía have shown in recent years. But with Labrinth the package didn’t really work out.
So now the fourth trick: COSMIC OPERA ACT I. The title alone suggests huge ambitions. And indeed: This first act of Labrinth’s cosmic opera holds nothing back, as the EP PRELUDE from last September suggested. R’n’B, soul, gospel, rap, trap and dubstep, electronic music and of course opera elements create an almost overwhelming whole. But only almost: Because somehow this time the musical limitlessness works much better than before. The album could be described as downright baroque if Labrinth’s rap parts didn’t always bring it back down to earth. On “God Spoke” it says: “Rescue me from myself.” And perhaps Labrinth took this to heart and saved himself a little from his own tendency to slip into megalomania.
Even the big mainstream rush doesn’t protect against self-doubt and disappointment
That doesn’t mean that COSMIC OPERA ACT I is a perfect album. No, here too there are always moments in which the mannerism of the genre mix ends in kitsch, especially towards the end of the album. But songs like the dark “Implosion,” dripping with self-hatred and hubris, work precisely because the Brit thinks uninhibitedly gigantic. For him, this song and the album in general are about the perspective of an artist with mental illness who is trying to somehow navigate a career in the music industry, he says about the album, about paranoia, threats, and the desperate and unsatisfactory hunt for success.
Well, even the big mainstream rush doesn’t protect against self-doubt and disappointment. In any case, he is still guaranteed a big appearance at the Coachella Festival in 2026. This first act of his cosmic opera shows that he may have found his direction. We can only hope that he doesn’t make a mistake.
This review appears in Musikexpress 2/2026.
