Album Review: Jamie T - 'Ghosts (100 Days of Morning)'
Guitars, guilt and a Paul Weller inspired cover: Jamie T faces his ghosts.
Jamie T has always been a songwriter haunted by his own past, so it makes sense that his sixth album, Ghosts (100 Days of Morning), finds him finally sitting down with it. After 2022's The Theory of Whatever, Jamie Treays was left with hundreds of voice notes and no way of stitching them together, and ghosts, as he puts it, are very hard to capture. The way out came from a hero. Struggling in the run up to his biggest ever headline show at Finsbury Park, he learned Paul Weller's live album from the Royal Albert Hall front to back, and discovered a Jam song he'd never heard, 'Ghosts'. It became the jumping off point for a record about owning the parts of yourself you keep at arm's length, and the puzzle of his last few years finally clicks into place.
Opener '3310', named after the old Nokia phone, sets the (ring) tone. That familiar indie vocal sat over a soft acoustic guitar before the track bursts into something more Jamie T. It turns British nostalgia and cheap snakebite into bold poetry, a strong start that tells you exactly what the album is about. 'Cocktail' is far more abrasive, a plucky guitar strum under verses that almost sound rapped, the instrumental swirling like something ripped from a PlayStation 2 game. It's a great song, enigmatic and full of personality, and a line about losing the friends he once had cuts especially deep. Additionally, Damon Albarn’s work on this track sits among the album's most striking moments. 'Waist 36 Leg 32' keeps the guitars front and centre, distorted before exploding into a cathartic release, a rousing rumination on guilt, masculinity and consumerism with a chorus built for dancing freely.
Then the pace drops. 'All I Wanna See is Now' is more confessional, the vocal layering on the chorus both heartbreaking and awe-inspiring, its looping outro the chef's kiss on what is essentially a declaration of love. 'The Won' leans on his unmistakable south London delivery against an atmospheric backdrop, the drums picking up the pace without shaking the sobering emotion. Its message that life doesn't always work out is the sort of thing you'd hear over the credits of a classic coming of age film. 'Chelsea Girls' follows, a half sung, stream of consciousness look at British culture through the lens of tabloid sensationalism, warm synths recalling the electronica of the late 90s.
The title track is the emotional pivot. Jamie's take on The Jam's 'Ghosts' is pacier than Weller's original, swirling synths adding a spectral edge before a groovy bassline drags it into the modern day, all while keeping the tenderness that hit him so hard in the first place. 'Crimson and Clover' takes one of the most covered songs in pop history and slows it right down, wistful and beautifully layered, ending on the sort of moment where a crowd waves its arms in unison. It's one of the most wholesome points on the record.
'Crucible' drifts into a dream pop feel, like a less nostalgic continuation of the last track. There's a peculiar breakdown in the middle, a deep vocal take before it bursts back to life, and the second half rescues the first, the outro sounding like it's being sung from an echo chamber of painful memories. 'Caught Cheating' is the most delicate track of the album, opening on a lone piano key and building as he deals with the aftermath of a mistake, before the delicacy tips into something more distraught; elongated notes and impassioned wailing.
The record closes on 'Tallahasee', an incredibly atmospheric intro, built around a sample of Leif Vollebekk's song of the same name. Jamie's conversational style returns, like a pop Mike Skinnerwithout the same charisma, and this is where the songwriting slips. Sonically it’s solid, but the more attention you pay to the lyrics the less appealing it gets. There's context, at least. After namechecking the likes of Lily Allen and Tracey Emin, he brands himself a plagiarist, playing with imposter syndrome, and a line casting himself as the soundtrack to your university years will resonate with plenty of his fans.
Ghosts (100 Days of Morning), out 9th October via Polydor, has all the hallmarks of that trademark Jamie T sound. Indie guitars, personable lyrics and the ache of wishing for the past, something the title alludes to before you press play. The songwriting may be lacklustre at moments, but with the 20th anniversary of Panic Prevention on the horizon, the undeniable talent of Jamie Treays remains firmly intact nearly two decades on from his debut.
Words by Alex Peters
