FOR much of the past five years, spiky Wimbledon singer-songwriter Jamie Treays has been missing, presumed … well, nobody really seemed to know what to presume.

The third album from one of the most interesting characters on the circuit suggests the interim period has involved several doses of intense and jittery reflection. The sniping, youthful, off-the-cuff brilliance of Treays’ first two outings, Panic Prevention and Kings And Queens, has been replaced by the sound of an almighty comedown.

Carry On The Grudge is an album of emotional wreckage made by somebody who now sees the London he’s always painted so vividly through the cynical eyes of a man, not a teenager. The palate includes Clash-style chaos (Zombie), twisted pop (Turn On The Light), reggae (Don’t You Find), blues (Mary Lee), electrified gospel (They Told Me It Rained), country (Murder Of Crows), and more.

And it works, purely because Treays is extremely talented. Carry On The Grudge is observational, unnerving, single-minded, brutal and mature.; a story told through a stutter, and which its creator really couldn’t have told any other way.

Review by Mark Stead