On the cover of his new album, Jay recreates Jack Nicholson near the end of The Shining, wandering through a frozen labyrinth, but that landscape never reflects the music. The music is super-poppy, bouncy, never claustrophobic, and diverges from the tinges of butt-metal that stormed and rippled on his last proper release, Blood Visions. In between that time, two singles collections were released, with each song exposed to more melodic atmospheres, adding organs and acoustic guitars to flourish. So if you’re familiar, you shouldn’t be surprised; but if you didn’t like the second side of his Matador Singles '08 LP, then stay away, because that development to the music is now further distanced from the unmethodical expectations of his name. But the tormented gaze of the Jack-Jay on the cover comes through in the lyrics - paranoid and guilt ridden, a laundry list of hindsight regrets, dread and confession. Rarely do they stray from a perspective of irreconcilable depression. Hopefully the songs can represent a catharsis of some sort, because if you only pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll be scowling like Jack-Jay on the cover, like me on the couch. When Jay sings “Ignore the sounds from my rotten mind,” my roommate dances with the kitten in her arms into the living room. “We are standing still,” Jay chants, and she’s kicking her legs in the air, raising the cat up and down over her head, really bustin' a move like an inebriated Rockette, and she’s smiling and really happy she’s not at work and completely oblivious to the pessimistic lyrics. - Shawn Goldberg