Review Summary: When it rains, it floods
The members of Jamaican Queens have had their fair share of rough times. In just about every interview I could find of these guys, there’s always some mention of their personal experiences with death. Front man Ryan Spencer talks about “four friends who committed suicide” in one interview, and “the murder of [our friend Caitlin’s] great aunt” in another while giving context to Wormfood’s closing track. Nevertheless, Jamaican Queens craft a playful, poppy, and even childlike sound amidst the wreckage that can be heard on tracks “Kids Get Away,” and “Can’t Say No To Annie,” all while still showing that they know exactly how stick the knife in and twist it on tracks like “Wellfleet Outro” and the aforementioned closer “Caitlin.”
There’s a veritable duality about the way the oddball Wormfood deals with its morbid themes. Sorrows are drowned out and psychedelically distorted by glammy trap-pop on the album’s front half, while the back half tackles the pervasively depressing themes head-on with gloomy, burnt-out ballads and heartbreakingly sincere lyricism. It sounds not unlike another oddball Detroit album, Danny Brown’s XXX, and that’s probably not a coincidence. The bankrupt and derelict Detroit sounds like an irreparably calamitous city, but the environment is not necessarily that of total hopelessness. The Detroit state of mind instead sounds like a mentality where sincerity remains consistent through everything. You can see it as much in Danny Brown’s earnest, goofy weirdness as you can hear it when Ryan Spencer sings “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry I really am,” on the album’s opener, “Water.”
Wormfood isn’t an exhibition in pure emotional rawness as much as it is an excellent marriage between genuine artful inspiration and emotionality; drawing all the good things from a nice breadth of influences. This is seen in the album’s first line, in which Ryan Spencer lifts a vocal melody from Brian Eno’s “Baby’s on Fire,” because he “thought it was so strong.” He continues, “Brian Eno is the master of creating challenging music, with having the simplest pop melodies on top of very abstract avant-garde background. I love that idea.” The lift of the melody works so well because you can tell he really means what he said in the interview, not to mention the track’s chorus features a plain awesome melody/counter-melody death combo. Jamaican Queens scratch the surface of brilliance elsewhere on the album as well, namely on Wellfleet Outro, which uncannily captures the icy detachment of a failing relationship—one where negligence and guilt kills all hope of romantic potential from the inside-out. After hearing Spencer’s vocals alongside a piano progression during the second stanza of “Caitlin,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of the way The National’s Matt Berninger sounded on Green Gloves. This makes sense too, since Ryan Spencer cites British Pop God Morrissey as his greatest songwriting influence (who not-so-obliquely influenced The National’s post-punk revival sound). Point here is, Ryan Spencer reminded me of a more nasally Matt Berninger for a second, which is a really, really good thing.
If there’s any place where Wormfood misses opportunities, it’s on the front half of the album, particularly on “Kids Get Away” and “Black Madonna.” These tracks are not aiming for maximum sadness, (and they don’t have to, Wellfleet Outro does that just fine) but they lack the perfect storm of weird elements to make the weirdness work for the best. The solid “Can’t Say No To Annie” is a different story however, it contains enough obviously juxtaposing instrumental elements and coherent structure to work really well.
The wide range of influences on this album comes off really well, though. From brit-pop to trap to lo-fi experimental music, Wormfood is quite the Frankenstein’s monster of an album, and a notably good one at that. It’s yet another interesting album to come out of the dire spectacle that is Detroit in the 2010s; bringing the overwhelming chaos along for the ride for everyone else to see.
