Review Summary: While Jamie T has gone away from his heavily hip hop influenced past, his new album, Kings and Queens, gives a great look at his genre diversity.
Sometimes you find artists hiding from their inspirations, except for the ones that flatter them of course. Jamie Treays (Known as Jamie T) doesn’t hide from his. Quoted as recently saying “I hate it when people pretend they’ve never listened to someone they obviously sound like.” Listening to his latest album,
Kings and Queens you can find evidence of his Bob Dylan idolization and a fondness of The Clash.
After confessing many numerous false starts with the album, Treays had been avoiding the idea of a second album, and claims to have gone straight to his third with this release. The album brings mainly guitar work to the fore, getting rid of the drum machine stylization from his previous release,
Panic Prevention. The result is a 43 minute, non filler album full of amazing music about aimless rebellion and evaporating relationships. Many songs throughout the album are highlights like ‘368,’ the opening track. It straight away connects you to the hip hop work of
Panic Prevention, but are much less marked here.
The album discusses many different themes to do with being messy in the CBD of London and how the British Society needs to work on its treatment of alcohol and drugs, and Treays sings about it with poetic justice:
When there's no-one left to fight
Boys like him don't shine so bright
Soon as i see the dusk settle
He's out on the town trying to find trouble
When there's no-one left to fight
Boys like him don't shine so bright
Soon as I see the dusk settle
He's out on the town trying to find trouble
A large amount of the album is focussed mainly on folk/indie and ska. Like ‘Hocus Pocus’ which is an upbeat indie song that has a catchy chorus, and a dominate guitar based rhythm. Then we do a full loop-de-loop in styles and come back to the hip hop influenced ‘Castro Dies’ featuring, which is surprisingly one of my favourite songs on the album. More surprising is the folk effort ‘Jilly Armeen.’ The song is a ballad about a girl who doesn’t respond to the ways he feels about him, so refuses to write anymore songs about her.
Though I am just scratching the surface of the record, as it is an in depth mash of genres. While fans of Jamie T’s last effort,
Panic Prevention may be disappointed with the lack of hip hop influenced tracks on this album. But it is safe to say that they will find comfort in the way Treays is able to mix many different stories into his amazing array of styles, that he of course is not ashamed to admit the origin.
