James Arthur - Bitter Sweet Love (Deluxe) (2024) Hi-Res

The singer-songwriter adds orchestral takes and bonus cuts to his fifth album. “With this album, I really feel like I’ve returned to myself as a singer-songwriter,” James Arthur tells Apple Music. “There’s a few songs that are pretty raw. I think that I’ve felt the demand for that in my fanbase.” The Middlesbrough-born artist’s fifth album Bitter Sweet Love isn’t all fan service, though. With work beginning before he headed out on tour in early 2022, he had a creative mission in mind. “I didn’t want to work with more than one producer, really,” he says. “Whereas historically, it might be a producer and then a co-writer, or I might just write by myself, or do the odd thing with a producer. This was very much just about finding somebody that could harness the vision that I had or understand it and help bring it to life.”

During a month-long blitz—the musical equivalent of speed dating—Arthur wound up reconnecting with Steven Solomon, who he worked with on his second record Back from the Edge. “The fact that he had been a session guitarist for a long time was really helpful—me and him were just getting a couple of guitars out and jamming a bit,” Arthur says. Within a week after the tour wrapped they had written the core of the record. “It just felt very inspired. I wanted to capture where I was at in a live sense,” he says. “I wanted to go back to more rock instrumentation.” Working almost entirely with Solomon not only facilitated a cohesive artistic vision, but allowed for experimentation and emotional vulnerability in the music. Album opener “Bitter Sweet Love”, for example, sees Arthur straddle heartache, strutting late ’80s funk guitars, a driving Kings of Leon-sized pre-chorus and layered gospel backing vocals, while “Just Us” is a gorgeous ballad about how parenthood affects life’s priorities. “This time, I feel like the floodgates were opened. It just felt like the possibilities were endless.” Read on to find out more about the key tracks on Bitter Sweet Love—which comes with bonus songs and orchestral versions on this deluxe edition—in Arthur’s own words.