Review: Jay Som – ‘Belong’
A little preamble here. Melina Duterte is a lore figure at From the Intercom. We often cite a prophetic 2018 show at The Glass House Pomona featuring Jay Som and headliner Japanese Breakfast pre-Jubilee, pre-NYT Best Selling author as a foundational reason for the FTI’s existence; in no small part to founder Li-Wei Chu living in proximity to the area during a time when the indie Asian American scene was maturing.
The thing is, I was also at that show before I even wrote for the site. Stars aligned for the magnetic power and meteoric rise of both of these artists in a backdrop where Asian representation beyond box office hits felt suddenly real. If Asian Americans felt equally important in the indie scene, we could really be anywhere. While Japanese Breakfast started to become mainstream, Jay Som hummed along, steady in the background.
No band represents FTI’s verve and energy quite like Jay Som, who has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes since their last album Anak Ko (2019). Whether touring with boygenius, providing songs for the film I Saw the TV Glow, or entertaining collabs with the likes of Troye Sivan and Dream, Ivory, we have been past eager to hear the ideas spinning from the lo-fi, bedroom, indie luminary — which no doubt would also be a response to that reputation as well. The FTI staff have seriously joked internally and with label friends for the past couple of years that our album of the year would be Jay Som’s next album — whenever it came out.
So 2025 is the year and Belong is the album. Let’s not bury the lede: It’s fucking great. Belong released on October 10th, right in the middle of Filipino American History Month and I needed to review it. I was able to catch the band playing the album in full for a handful of SoCal shows in May. I kept the pre-release link on loop in the car, digesting it fully and returning to it dozens of times.
You do not need to be indie Asian American nerds like us to fully enjoy this. Belong is such a strong, approachable third go from bandleader Melina Duterte that takes full advantage of the resources at her disposal. “Cards on the Table”, “Float”, “What You Need”, “Appointments”, “Drop A”,“Past Lives” and “Casino Star” are radio-ready as far as I’m concerned — and that’s most of the album.
Opening with “Cards on the Table” is such a brave take. The unexpected skittering synth edges of this track bounce in circuit to Duterte’s vocals fading in and out. The instruments we expect from a Jay Som song start to fall in, joined by FTI favorite Lexi Vega of Mini Trees to duet. Despite the pulsing tempo of the song, “Cards on the Table” is full of sorrow. This is a song about someone who isn’t there for you anymore, and they don’t even know. “You give just enough to keep me around” is searing, jaw dropping.
By the chorus, we understand “Cards on the table / Lay it all out / Say it, you let me down” is the sudden realization that there’s no going back. I wish I could teleport you into my car, bass buzzing the frame, when I had completely fallen apart to this song. I was so close to having this song at my wedding, but it was just sad enough to leave out. I couldn’t put my parents through that.
“Float” follows with immediate fire. Upbeat drums steady, guitars and bass dancing into each other, and a sticky mantra make it hard to argue that this is the premiere track of the entire record. The repetition on this is hypnotic and numbing. Oh, also Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World features on this, what the hell! The lyrics reflect disassociation from a person, from life, full of unfeeling, yet the instrumentation is extremely kinetic. The lesson is the same: relinquish everything, path of least resistance: “Float, don’t fight.”
I was immobilized the instant I heard “What You Need”. So interesting, so detailed, and so idiosyncratic to all the qualities that I come to Jay Som for. The temperature is cooler, darker from more sullen vocals. An airy piano and instruments are stuck revving like a car engine. The collaboration with Soft Glas on this is especially felt and I hope it’s not the last time they work together. “Back up, what you want / And what you’re telling me / Doesn’t matter what you mean / You can take the last word.” Against a vestigial person, captured in a glass box, forced to withdraw — this is a conversation finally over, hyperextended, overwritten in palimpsest. You can’t stop them from talking, which is why it’s worth leaving. “I swear it could last forever.”
“Appointments” and “Drop A” shrink into strummier, gentler, singer-songwriter reflections of relationships lost. Missed appointments and wrong directions dress the liminal space with residual feelings. The spare, patio-crooning environment on “Appointments” still ends in a refusal to try whatever this is again. The heavier, lower sound on “Drop A” matches Duterte’s intonation, trudging along in the metaphoric car stalling and waiting turns.
At the halfway point, “Past Lives” exhales epic emo energy, thanks in no small part to pop-punk stalwart Hayley Williams’ feature. The car motif returns, “stuck in the mud”, “shifting gears”, frozen and finally defrosting. And to what end? The spirit of what remains: rage, defeat, abandonment becomes physical — at literal “halftime” no less. The track climbs from ghostly guitar harmonics to expansive cymbal hits before dramatically shredding and warping climaxes. Everything is “spiraling up” all that has been bottled and unsaid. And then there’s a restart.
What is abundantly clear in Belong is Duterte’s bout with the word itself. Where do we belong? What does it mean to belong to someone else, or someone to belong to you? Are we just borrowing time from each other until it’s time to move on? The relationships we leave and grow beyond reflect the relationship with ourselves. This collection of songs represents someone who has had a lot to say but waited for just the right moment to say it — maybe even questioned when that right moment was or if it would ever arrive.
Melina Duterte is paying attention — to the world and her place in it. Belong is a statement of moving on and moving forward, to not be held back by the baggage of past lives and expectations. There is more work to do. There is more fuel in the tank.
Belong is out now via Polyvinyl Records.
Artist pages: Bandcamp | Polyvinyl | Spotify | YouTube | Instagram
