Jamie T seems to live in the past. It’s not that the indie troubadour hasn’t released anything new since his 2007 debut – he has, and much of it is just as brilliant as that first outing – but the music of Jamie Treays evokes a certain nostalgia: one shaped by cheap lager, sticky bar stools, and drunken sing-alongs. Every few years, Treays returns and makes us feel young again.
The release of Panic Prevention was a cultural reset. The album introduced a then 21-year-old Jamie Treays as a scrappy, motor-mouthed chronicler of city nightlife. The label “urban poet” was thrown around a lot, which, naturally, he hated. Bar his fourth album Carry on the Grudge, which constituted a more traditional rock sound, his albums have continued in the same spirit as his debut, a riotous trip through metropolitan dislocation. Or simply the wanderings of a curious mind.
