Album Review: 'Jamie' by Montell Fish

Hues of blue have always been tied to melancholy and deep anguish for me, and Jamie by Montell Fish perfectly encapsulates and affirms those feelings.  

I discovered Montell right after the pandemic, when Jamie was first released, and it became an album I frequently revisit at different stages in my life.  

The entire album is about heartbreak, grief and the different avenues we choose to take to heal- some healthy, some destructive.  

If you are looking for an album that associates itself with the “professional yearner” moniker, look no further, as this is the perfect album for you.  

Before we get into the music, I would like to note that this is not only an album that feels like an elegy written for a lover, but an elegy written to mourn a time in Fish’s life, the warmth and comfort he no longer felt as well as the loss of time he will never be able to take back. 

This album was entirely self-produced by Fish himself and feels extremely personal to his experiences while simultaneously showcasing the raw universality of sadness.   

The title track “Jamie” begins with Fish’s feelings for his lover in an almost posthumous way, the lines “I just wanna know how you’re doing, I just wanna know how you are,” show that despite the lack of communication and result from the fallout, he still wants the best for Jamie.  

The last 30 seconds of the song is a beautifully written soliloquy directed to anyone who will listen, and he states, “You can love someone so much that it’s to the point of destroying your own self, you are so, so selfless and you care for them so much that you realize you are being a detriment to your own self, is it healthy, is it healthy to love this much?” (Jamie 3:00).  

The next track, “Last Dance,” feels like a whimsical fever dream to me, like a picturesque cinematic scene in a film where the two lovers are walking in the rain with ambient music in the background.  

“Fall In Love With You” and “And I’d Go A Thousand Miles” both feel like letters written to Fish’s lover, specifically stating his intentions and affirmations regarding Jamie. He repeatedly chants “One day, I’m gonna find you,” which allows the listener to understand his feelings of loss. The feeling of heartbreak is similar to the feeling of losing someone, so I related to both of these tracks very intensely.  

I would consider myself to be someone who enjoys hauntingly ethereal music, and the entire album doesn’t fall short of that from a sound, artistic or conceptual standpoint.  

“Enough for You” and “Talk 2 Me” grapple with Fish’s intense feelings of disconnection between what once was and what currently is. “Talk 2 Me” is my least favorite song on the album, it feels like an outward cry of desperation and sadness but a little too outward for my taste.  

“Fallin Out of Love With You” and “Destroy Myself Just For You” feel like a turning point in the album where Fish is now addressing himself instead of Jamie and how the feelings from the heartbreak are impacting him from an introspective point of view.  

“Destroy Myself Just For You” is the first song I ever listened to by Montell Fish, and I’m so glad I found him when I did, because he has truly shown me the meaning of going through your feelings instead of around them.  

“Darling” is my absolute favorite song on the album. Fish evokes a sense of dread in this track, almost as if love is personified and running away from him. He chases it and still cannot seem to get close enough to reach out and touch it. I find so much beauty in this track because I, too, find myself chasing after acrimonious far-sighted illusions of what love is and is not.  

The 10^th and final track, “I Can’t Love You This Much,” feels like an olive branch extended not only to Jamie but to himself. To Jamie, because he still deeply cares for her and will never stop loving her and to himself, because he has a choice to move on or continue wallowing in the suffering of losing her. He ultimately chooses to move on.  

Jamie by Montell Fish serves as an apologetic love letter sent to a past lover who no longer lives at the same address and will ultimately never receive it. It drifts like unopened mail through the quiet corridors of memory, stamped with regret and lines of smeared ink with words left unsaid.  

This album lingers in that ambiguously fragile space between longing and acceptance, where love hasn’t quite faded and may never will.