This week's CD choice

JAMIE T

Kings and Queens Virgin *****

With his Mercury-nominated debut, Panic Prevention, 23-year-old South Londoner Jamie Treays established himself as an energetic, if giddy, commentator on all aspects of “yoof” culture. Occupying a similar space to acts such as Mike Skinner and, to a lesser extent, Lily Allen, there was a lightness of approach and skewed humour to his work. Nominally a hip-hop act, there were clues aplenty as to the depth and width of his musical ability.

For this magically stunning follow-up, Treays has discarded his previous persona, and now comes across as an electronic melding of Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg and Paul Weller. Those are some heavyweight names to throw around, but it’s because Kings And Queens is an urban masterpiece.

The leaps and bounds he has taken here are all evident on the opening track, the beguiling 368 – a song that sounds like it’s an out-take from The Clash’s Sandinista!. And he sustains this dynamic new approach over the propulsive break-up song Hocus Pocus. It’s not all metropolitan grit though – on the acoustic Emily’s Heart, he deftly moves into bruised troubadour mode with this piece of dysfunctional folk music. He delves back into this atypical sound on the hushed Jilly Armeen.

Lyrically, he’s in superb form, collecting the flotsam and jetsam of contemporary culture and putting a poetic shape on what he finds. And yes, the Bragg/ Strummer comparisons do hold up.

If you’re reminded of a south London version of Blue Lines, it’s because this is a massively ambitious work – musical styles clash and collide and something new is fused in a technicolour collage. Hip-hop, new wave, folk, electronica – all are tossed into the high-speed blender that is Kings and Queens, and what pours out is not just one of the albums of the year, but a new career high for Jamie T and an album that will surprise as much as it will thrill. www.jamie-t.com

Download tracks: 368, The Man's Machine