Jay Som - Belong
2025 • POLYVINYL RECORDS • INDIE POP / ROCK
87/100
Jay Som has always been one of those "favorite player's favorite player" types - the kind of artist who's been in the gym while everyone else was getting headlines. For the last six years, Melina Duterte has been running practice: producing the GRAMMY-winning boygenius album the record, Dacus' Forever Is A Feeling, and countless beloved indie records - mixing Fenne Lilly's "Lights Light Up" (maybe my favorite song of the 2020s - who knew she was behind that perfectly tracked masterpiece?), working with Illuminati Hotties, Vagabon, and Chastity Belt - while serving as a touring member of boygenius. Like Lucy Dacus once said, "when you hear a cool song in the grocery store, and you look up who it is, it's always Jay Som." The veterans took notice, and she's recruited some surprise guests for this comeback. As a power forward that spaces the floor for others to shine, she's taking it to another level, proving she has a high upside and a broad range.
Belong opens with "Cards on the Table," which swings from bedroom pop sweetness into a dance-away-the-sadness banger with a polyrhythmic exchange between drum machine and guitar. Duterte's voice carries that drone linger quality, similar to Blondshell's dark intonation. She's calling out a lover who lifts her up just to let her down, and when she gets to "Cards on the table / Lay it all out," the crescendo hits like a final ultimatum. As Duterte has said, "I want to sound like other people...If you just keep doing shit that you love and are proud of, that's the most unique thing you can do." It's the approach that defines Belong, not trying to reinvent the wheel, but perfecting her own version of moves she's studied for years.
The record moves through heartbreak with shoegaze textures, and Duterte channels Brian Aubert’s androgynous snarl across several songs that could slot right into a Silversun Pickups setlist. Those textures never quite let you settle, a delicious kind of tension. On "Float," she's holding onto that "so you're telling me there's a chance" energy from Dumb and Dumber, even when the writing's on the wall. On "Appointments," she delivers that slow burn coffee shop morning realization that it's not worth going back, repeating 'I don't wanna cry' until the words lose their weight while 'holding the grains' of a relationship that's already slipped through her fingers like sand.
After years of almost-moments, she's rebooting. "Past Lives" featuring Hayley Williams becomes the emotional elbow of the album - friends yelling at the moon about lost connections you're two steps ahead of turning back to. "It's falling apart / Shut down and restart / Melt off, defrost / I'm spiraling up." It's like watching someone's emotional operating system crash and then boot up stronger, clawing out of stuck-in-my-feelings playlist territory into something more defiant. The roster on this album speaks to her peer’s respect, Jim Adkins signed on the vet minimum, Melina claimed Hayley's bird rights after they toured together. When you can build a team like that around your vision, you're ready to be the number one option.
Across the album's second half, she experiments with texture and form. On "Drop A," she channels Clairo's breeziness while pining - a bright electric guitar dances across the track that sounds like wearing a beachside tourism sweatshirt three sizes too big on a cold day. Voice filters turn fuzzy and unsettling as songs split into mini-movements that drift before snapping back. She's processing unresolved feelings without trying to wrap everything up in a bow, letting things stay messy and strange. "A Million Reasons Why" features a simping hard, coo-sung bent chord low stress dream filled with people talking as the track exits. The closer "Want It All" evokes Marika Hackman's voice, Miss Grit's futurism, and Soundgarden's guitarscape - positioning her as a leading voice in alt-rock's next wave.
Jay Som got lost in the shuffle during the sad girl indie rush of the 2010s while Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, and Beabadoobee broke through. At one point, Duterte even considered hanging up her Jay Som moniker to focus solely on production - she'd been behind the boards with contemporary hall-of-famers, so why not stay there? But Belong feels like her proving she belongs, absorbing the best moves from everyone she's studied to make something lyrically rich, artistically bold, and entirely her own. She was beaming with her boygenius buds on SNL a few years ago, having the time of her life, but soon she'll be hugging a Grammy in the green room - Producer of the Year, Rock Album of the Year, take your pick. After years of perfecting her craft from the bench, you might be asking what she would do if she never made it. I guess we'll never know.
NBA COMP: Jayson Tatum's 2024 championship season.
Four trips to the Eastern Conference Finals, watching peers like Giannis and Jokic break through first, Tatum wore his influences so openly that it should've been corny. But when he finally held that trophy in the locker room, hugging it like Kobe, and channeled the Kevin Garnett head-tilt yell, nobody cared about the borrowed moves anymore. The young pup had put in the work, learned from the greats, and proved that sometimes the best way to find your own voice is to study what you love about your peers.