Two years after her melting EP A comforting notion, Heartworms (the solo project of Jojo Orme) releases Glutton For Punishment, under the production of Dan Carey and his Speedy Wunderground label (Black Country, New Road, Tiña, Lazarus Kane among many others).
So many times I listened to the record, that the promotional album I was sent reached a cap after a week. This made me write more urgently about it with the fear that the album would fade away in the wrinkles of memory. The opposite effect happened, the songs emerged in full force during team meetings, or whilst walking in the reddish Mancunian rain.
Heartworms will perform at the White Hotel in Salford on the 14th of February. Sadly, I won’t be able to attend since I´ll be on an overpriced train to pet sit my auntie´s dog in the south. I have asked friends to be my eyes, ears and skin, and tell me how the gig was. Far from Manchester, far from home, I´ll receive an informal review from the gig from my friends via emojis.
Movement is what surrounds Glutton for Punishment. Movement as opposed to inaction, repression, inhibition. Being grounded vs the freedom of being released; the town vs the city; the constant friction of war and peace. From Just to ask a dance to the closing track: Glutton for Punishment, what we have in the beginning was not the word, was dance.
Until the release of this article, three music videos from the record have been posted: Jacked, Warplane, Extraordinary Wings. The black and white aesthetic characteristic of Orme is present in each of it directed by Gilbert Trejo. They expand the experience of the album and feed Heartworms’ identity.
Orme’s lyrics in every track are direct, focused and emotionally charged. Not needing many metaphors to maintain them, it would feel like her writing is also a direct confession in a confessional booth. The guitar lines (Jacked) smack like the sound of sandpaper against concrete floor, to finally explode in dozens of splinters. Her voice is elastic, adapts to different shapes (Warplane) but remains constant and recognizable throughout the record.
In more than one interview, Orme has mentioned that she volunteers at the RAF museum in London. It would be just a matter of time before she gets flooded by fans (if she isn’t already) waiting for a tour once they find out her rota for the week. But these passions are no hobbies, these are not things that we do to “rest” from “work”, we are talking about life and Orme have weaved them together in her art.
Orme doesn’t get away from what may have caused her pain in the past. She touches the rawness and in Smugglers we get a glimpse of this. In Glutton for Punishment, there’s steady push to get out of the post punk label that she was initially categorized. Reaching (and embracing) in this record the shores of industrial, goth, pop and their inherent combinations, she makes it impossible to box her music.
Thematically, the album can be divided in three parts: In the beginning; Just to ask a dance; Jacked; Mad Catch: Love songs. Extraordinary; Warplane; Celebrate: War songs. Smugglers; Glutton for punishment: Infancy and adolescent songs. This taxonomy is mistaken and inaccurate, since we could conclude that all the tracks in the record are love songs.
If we go along the lines of Freud, we can call this record as a product of sublimation, but I’d rather think of Heartworms as an alchemist. Taking the stuff that has made her, she makes something haunting, effective and full of ambition.
Heartworms: Glutton For Punishment – Out 7 February 2025 (Speedy Wunderground)
– Extraordinary Wings (Official Video)
