The Beat Surrender

Jamie-T has been a real breath of fresh air since emerging with his debut single Salvador. Taking up the mantle laid down by Mike Skinner (yes an obvious reference point I know) he has melded the best elements of British urban music with Ska, indie and a general pop sensibility that ensures nearly every song on this album has something to hook you in.

Like Skinner he is a lad from London (Wimbledon) who has a real poetic streak in him when it comes to singing about the low lifes and other characters that walk the streets of our capital city in this day and age. Live a lot of the songs come alive beyond even the sound of the this record, the album opener Brand New Bass Guitar is my least favourite track of his. Yet on stage it’s turned from the slightly wigged out mess you get on record into a dirty great track that opens his set in fine style.

After the slightly chaotic opening (including Jamie talking in the back ground of the track as it closes saying thats the scruffiest take of that song he’s done), then things really get going. The afore mentioned single Salvador is a throbbing foot tapper that would storm the charts if given a worthy re-release, Calm Down Dearest, If You Got The Money and Shiela have already dented the charts with their individual infectious hooks.

While these tracks are the ones that will grab the limelight and the praise, it’s others on Panic Prevention that give you the real insight into the talented troubador that has created it. The simple, yet brilliant Back In The Game is as an emotional track as you’l hear from him, Ike & Tina has a fantastic flow to it, So Lonely Is The Ballad is genius white-boy street ska and Alicia Quays gives the album a worthy epic finish weighing in at nearly six and a half minutes in total.

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