Photo Credit: Gilbert Trejo
What a great title for an album Glutton For Punishment is, look at any dictionary and it will describe the term as someone who seems to enjoy doing something that you consider unpleasant. Step in Heartworms, who has created nine tracks about broken families, broken relationships and the unpleasantness of wars, which she describes, saying: “We’re all drawn to punishing ourselves, and I’m always drawn to singing about it, and thinking about it.”
We discovered Heartworms in July 2024, when we covered their set down at the River Stage during TRNSMT Festival. Jojo Orme‘s performance was so memorable and pulled you in from the first song until the last, with her haunting vocals backed by a solid band.
In The Beginning opens the album with some distorted wind sounds, before exploding into life with the brilliant Just To Ask A Dance – it’s a very upbeat start. If anyone had pigeonholed Heartworms as post-punk then this album will definitely change their perception. It’s very different to 2023’s A Comforting Notion EP, most of the songs experiment with dance elements at times, working well alongside the shimmering and haunting vocals from Orme. Jacked starts off almost sounding like Firestarter from The Prodigy, before a sweet guitar riff takes over – this is one of the most atmospheric tracks on the record with standout vocals.
Heartworms had an unconventional route to playing music as she freely discusses: “I had a very hard, very strict upbringing. I wasn’t allowed to be a normal kid. I ended up being grounded for a year because I had a boyfriend, and I taught myself guitar.” There are some moments on the record where Orme expresses the pains of childhood, and we think it’s so refreshing to hear an artist pour their hearts out to the listeners. Extraordinary Wings is a well put together track that is just begging to be heard in a live atmosphere. The outro of Extraordinary Wings is mesmerising, as Orme sings continuously “I don’t wish murder ‘cause I got no right.” Warplane is another song that has a catchy chorus and will no doubt go down well live.
We move back into the dance influences in Celebrate, while, despite being the longest track on the record, Smugglers Adventure keeps you interested right until the end, with a combination of Orme’s vocals and some punchy synth work. If any song can be defined as post-punk on the LP then this is the one – just when you think the track is over it springs back into life for a crescendo.
Glutton For Punishment ends on a quieter note, with the title track starting off acoustically and ending with the outro “All I want to do is dance, dance, dance.” This album certainly made us want to do that very thing.
9/10
Standout Tracks: Jacked, Extraordinary Wings, Warplane
For Fans Of: The Cure, PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode
Written by: Alan Brown
