Fifteen years ago, Wimbledon singer-songwriter Jamie Treays – AKA Jamie T – released his debut album, Panic Prevention. Armed with a guitar, a palpitating sense of social anxiety and a shouty vocal that often veered into an MCing style, Treays anointed himself the chip-shop troubadour of the mid-00s.
His were meandering, confessional songs, telling cautionary tales of London’s seedy underbelly (Sheila), forlorn searches for love (If You Got the Money), and the crushing pressures of the smoke-filled city (So Lonely Was the Ballad). Treays’s delivery was distinctive but his sound existed within the sphere of his contemporaries, featuring the punk-inflected guitars of the Libertines and the UK hip-hop influences of the Streets. It was a successful combination: Treays earned a Mercury prize nomination in 2007 and his following record, 2009’s Kings & Queens, reached No 2 in the UK.
Read the review in the Observer.
[This piece was published on 24/07/22]