JEEN Releases Emotional Centrepiece “So What” of Gold Control LP Out Feb. 2, 2024
JEEN unveils “So What” today, the emotional centrepiece and final single from Gold Control, her record out on February 2nd. JEEN joins creative forces once again with long-time collaborator Canadian indie musician and producer Ian Blurton who has taken the role of co-producer on JEEN’s last five albums. “Can you stay another minute, sit me on the couch, talk to me until I pass out, and if I had it my way, I’d lie there and that’s where we’d stay, don’t wake me up,” she sings. Its hazy dream-like longing for connection is relatable as JEEN’s softer vocals gently guide the listener along through the moment as if taking them by hand.
“It’s about never-ending uphill battles,” she shares about the energetic, pop-leaning track, “and wishing you could freeze time to stay with someone you can’t enough of.”
Gold Control is hazy, heady, hedonistic, and hopeful. The luminous ten tracker is her fourth album this decade, gliding along the same trajectory as its predecessors while maintaining its own identity. Grunge. Garage. Psych-rock. Punk. Tinges of Shoegaze. Her influences continue to shine as she crafts them into her own vehicle with ease.
Despite the lyric “It’s all I got inside me,” lead single “Just Shadows” is a firm foot forward, its quick frantic pace bouncing along and transporting the listener to those communal sweaty nights in dodgy body-packed underground clubs with the band five feet away making all feel as one. The lyrically confrontational “Making Me Mad” bounds along proudly with two fingers firmly up and an assured sense of one’s older self. On “Hold My Head Up Higher” (feat. Ian Blurton), their strength in working together shines, its swirling chorus shimmers along the flesh and induces frisson with ease. Other moments where JEEN really shines include “Good Omen” which crashes about the primal highway in all its fuzzy glory, “Give Myself Away” with its dark, ethereal howling echoes, and “Rain Low” which finds itself adding a more vulnerable and delicate layer to the album. It’ll be raucous and aggressive at some points and harmonious at others with promises of a soft landing.