The cover photo on the fifth album from Jamie Treays, featuring a pink shirted golfer mid-swing, could be a joke aimed at forlorn fans who think he must have retired. The Wimbledon musician emerged in the late 2000s as a kind of one-man southern version of Arctic Monkeys, offering rowdy depictions of young lives in a thick accent over indie rock guitars. After two hit albums there was a gap of five years before the next one. This time it’s six since we last heard from him, and he definitely isn’t someone who gives daily updates on their whereabouts on social media.
In one of the rare interviews which he clearly finds so excruciating, he has revealed that his problem wasn’t too few songs, but too many. There were around 180 candidates for this album in various states of completeness. That means that the 13 that made the cut don’t necessarily sit together with a clear sense of character, but there ought to be a new one to add to your personal greatest hits here no matter where your tastes lie.
British Hell comes closest to the semi-rapped shoutiness and jagged guitars of his early days. The 36-year-old even harks back to his younger self in the lyrics: “I remember middle 20/I was arrogant and uncouth,” he offers. Immediately afterwards he’s at his weirdest on The Terror Of Lambeth Love, a lurching, spooky composition whose guitars sound like they’re playing at the wrong speed.
Even when he sounds musically more conventional, something stranger is going on. The closing ballad, 50,000 Unmarked Bullets, sounds like a heartfelt piano love song, but seems to be sung from the perspectives of two members of an overthrown government who are handcuffed together.
When he returns to the concert stage – and he’s still big enough to fill Alexandra Palace this November – surely the best response will be for a handful of rousing, rockier songs that bound across this album with infectious energy. The lead single, The Old Style Raiders, is great fun, and is matched easily by the racing jangle of A Million & One New Ways To Die and the punky Between the Rocks, which goes quiet for a spoken breakdown before ramping back up again for a spectacular finale.
When we might next get an album is anyone’s guess, but there’s plenty here to prove why so many have missed him so much.
