Belong

Fans coming for the old formula will not be completely satisfied with Belong, but if they find a good chunk of the record does just what they want. The guitar may have taken a more minor role, but the production and attention to the tiniest details throughout Belong show a new level of artistry.

Fittingly – and thankfully – she still resists playing into anyone’s hands, offering a statement that’s at once both delightfully palatable and explores new corners of her sound. What’s more, they’re clearly the corners that interest and excite her.

The record’s sequencing underlines its restless thesis: the solemnity of Appointments melts into the weightless bounce of Drop A, a movement from stasis to momentum central to Duterte’s embrace of flux. Past Lives, buoyed by Hayley Williams’ harmonies, erupts into a scale Jay Som once shied from, before collapsing into the spectral murk of D.H.

‘Belong’ has an easy-on-ear feel that is combined to a rich audio quality. But it’s more than just studio magic – Jay Som has rarely written with more confidence, rarely expressed herself with more bravery.

Belong is a welcome addition to Jay Som's discography, and will undoubtedly solidify her reputation as your favourite pop singer's favourite pop singer.

On Belong, Duterte’s re-emergence as Jay Som, she exudes the confidence of those six years quietly but well spent. What the album loses in raw shaggy experimentalism of her last records, it gains in understated poise.

Even if the album largely sets aside the impeccable hook-craft of previous work, the sequence is indeed sonically and thematically compelling.