JEEN - Gold Control
Self-Released
Released February 2nd, 2024
Toronto-based artist Jeen O’Brien, stylized as JEEN, is an indie rock veteran who has penned songs for commercials, TV shows, movies, and other artists, played with CanCon supergroup Cookie Duster, and produced over five albums under her own name since 2015. The level of experience shows on Gold Control, a dreamy trek through familiar genres delivered by a deft hand and with stadium-band flare and confidence.
JEEN demonstrates an ability to thrive both as an artist and a working songwriter. Her sound combines the grit of 90s grunge with the emotive glamour of indie-adjacent early-aughts acts like the Killers or the Strokes, all treated with the washy ambiguity of the dreampop decade. Songs tread easily from shoegaze to arena rock and back, while frequently hinting at boygenius-level heartache or evoking the reverby romanticism of groups like Alvvays.
The album nods to a not-too-distantly-past era when guitars in pop music were more unabashedly huge-sounding, while still keeping with recent years’ musical tendency to trend ever synthward. Rock and roll leads feature heavily, tempered by arrangements abounding in lush pads; songs like “Just Shadows” showcase punky and urgent alt-rock guitar work, while the organ-laden “Fade and Fading” and spaciously driving “So What” make especially evident the sparkling production employed throughout the album.
Darker highlights include “Give Myself Away,” which has the feel of 2000s alt-rock familiar to a kid who grew up on Franz Ferdinand or Muse, “Good Omen,” which delivers the instantly classic line, “I’m not looking for a heart of gold/ I’m just looking for some soul, soul, soul,” over angsty hardrock riffing, and “Rain Low,” which artfully conjures a sense of timeless longing underscored by glam-rock guitarmonies.
The album reaches a penultimate highpoint with “Making Me Mad”—JEEN belts the anthemic chorus, “If I was younger, I’d try harder, but you’re making me mad, and I’m grown up, and I just don’t care now”—and then closes with the short and sweet “I Can Explain,” a two-minute pop gem with lyrics that grip the heart: “I won’t fan the flames … I thought I could explain, tomorrow/ it’s too late though.”
The singer’s strong voice retreats into a toned-down, Mazzy Star-like melancholy in this final track; as in many of the songs, the lyrics are obscured by vocal layering and generously dosed delay, prioritizing an overall impression over specific poetic nuance. The song’s gently haunting quality has its own kind of power, especially in contrast to the harder-hitting tunes preceding it, and feels like the cherry on top of an album that shines with substance, emotion, and classic pop catchiness.
- Ava Glendinning
