TRACK REVIEW: Jen Dixon – Which Way is Down?

Considering the window of her bedroom studio harbours a view of the North Sea, it hardly requires a genius to decipher the watery threads connecting much of Jen Dixon’s songwriting. Certainly, the not-particularly-covert influence of its deep, icy depths is felt again on the Teessider’s third single – her second burning question of the year, following January’s Where Did We Crash?

Certainly, Which Way Is Down? is nothing if not relatable; its reference to drowning (“I’m underwater, screaming for help / but nobody’s helping, nobody cares”) a suitably inescapable metaphor for the suffocating effect of endless lockdowns. It’s well executed – from its stuttering inaugural beats to its rapped final verse – though sentimentally it feels like an inadvertent agent to what’s already become 2021’s most omnipresent musical trope.

Released: 09.04.21