Review: Jay Som slips back into her own sound after six years of collaboration with new record, “Belong,” tinged in nostalgia and decorated with hard edges.

Belong, the newest album by Los Angeles’ Jay Som, is an ever-moving body, tinged in nostalgia and decorated with hard edges. It finds the songwriter behind the project, Melina Duterte, turning over concepts like acceptance, rejection, and the ever-elusive search for sureness in one’s identity and work in her hands, folding them in with everything from touching ballads to edgy pop-punk. 

This record marks Jay Som’s first record since 2019’s Anak Ko, but Duterte has stayed plenty busy in the meantime. She’s collaborated with a slew of artists (including Troye Sivan, Chastity Belt, and beabadoobee), won a Grammy for her work on boygenius’ The Record and joined the trio’s touring band, and wrote a song for a major spot in the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack. Now, her musical outreach beyond the Jay Som-sphere has poured back in, with Belong acting as her most collaborative work yet. 

Track two of the album, “Float,” features Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World and is appropriately infused with the turn-of-the-century pop-punk flair of Duterte’s youth. It has a tough sound and angsty lyrics to match, but ultimately delivers a freeing motto in the form of a gassed-up chorus encapsulating the moment you decide to let go and push forth, repeating “Float, don’t fight.” When Paramore’s Hayley Williams joins in on the chorus of “Past Lives,” it’s nothing short of a power surge. There’s also a certain Rilo Kiley-ishness to the harmonic touches here, in keeping with the 2000s sentimentality. The lyrics offer a similar flip back and forth between unsureness and confidence, reflecting on the stagnations and self-inhibitions of the past while looking toward the possibility of rebuilding into something greater in the wake of self-destruction, or “spiraling up” as Duterte puts it. 

The collaborative nature of Belong may seem a bit paradoxical considering how personal the record’s subject matter is. The writing process found Duterte entering her 30s, beginning a new long-term relationship, and being pulled to return to nostalgia rather than chasing after new sounds. In the past, Jay Som has been a decidedly DIY project, and you might have expected that that pattern to hold for such a sensitive time in her life, but rather than feeling confined to the self, there is a palpable sense of freedom in the album, particularly in the range of sounds she explores. 

Belong only gets more sonically interesting as it goes on. The layering in “Casino Stars” feels like a gust of cool air before things deconstruct in the Meander half of “Meander/Sprouting Wings,” during which the aged piano and distorted vocals might be completely disorienting if you’re too married to the indie-pop label that’s been ascribed to Jay Som. The second half offers a wiry guitar riff and a sensitive vocal delivery that make the track seem like two sides of a coin. This song feels like it could easily be an I Saw the TV Glow B-side, unsettling and comforting all in one. “A Million Reasons Why” comes next to stretch the range of Duterte’s vocal style even further, with pitched up vocals set to an easy-listening R&B instrumental. 

There’s really something for everyone to enjoy here, from the aforementioned pop-punk influence, to vulnerable moments like “Appointments,” to uber-cool cuts “D.H.” and “Want It All” that are laced with a bit of an industrial feel. And rest easy, Duterte does not entirely abandon the ‘pop’ half of her categorization, with catchiness abounding in tracks like “What You Need” and opener “Cards On The Table.” Duterte’s efforts to stretch out of her comfort zone while also leaning on her influences on Belong are strikingly successful, seeming to self-actualize the hopefulness of conquering her own doubts that is at the foundation of the record.

Jay Som's new album, "Belong," was released October 10th, 2025