Jamie T aka James Treay is an early turn of the century phenomenon who got caught up in drugs and went down the “Rabbit Hole” for five years, returning last week with a terrific, and I mean terrific new album, Carry On The Grudge.
A sick and tired drug addled pop eyed rock and rap pop star Jamie is a mess but a musical mess and the album is a tuneful slip and slide, when he calls a song “Love IS Only A Heartbeat Away” you get this immense anxiety, you can just read the death after the heartbeat, and for good reason though the track itself is Americana via London. It is really different.
Carry On The Grudge is not what I was expecting at all, I was expecting Billy Bragg via the Streets but what I got doesn’t immediately draw a comparison: these are well arranged songs of inner sickness ala JAMC circa Darklands, but it doesn’t sound like them at all. On the very first song, Janie sounds like Bono but in a good way, and the second track has an awesome exyended coda which sounds like an anthem with a really bad headache.
Jamie has a good voice but as likely to speak-sing rap as to sing proper though the stab and retreat could be on of a few bands. A little earlier, Jamie adds a cut throat rap to a rock and roll generalist for “Turn On the Light” –a typical untypical slice of Jamie T.
The self-portrait Clash alike “Zombie” is the sort of self portrait we expect from a 29 year old guy who seems capable of being the D’Angelo of the UK: “Cause I’m a sad sad post teen caught up in the love machine, no dream, come clean”.
The surprise here isn’t that Jamie T is still alive, or that he can write a song, it is that he is better at everything he does. He sounds like a rock start, and he sounds like a mess but one who has the real gift, who might be able to be big time… not in the US, of course, but still this went Top 10 in the Uk.
Grade: B+
