When Jane Remover surprise-dropped “JRJRJR,” the sky screamed with the last fireworks and a sulfurous haze hung in the air. It was midday on January 1, 2025, and the song felt something like a war cry—instilling fear in enemies and glee in digicore OGs. And if you thought the glitch-wracked “JRJRJR” was overwhelming, then brace yourself for the apocalyptic “Psychoboost.” Named after an attack move associated with the Pokémon Deoxys, this song hits like a laser shooting through your brain. In the video game’s lore, Deoxys spawned from an alien virus that descended from outer space—I wouldn’t be surprised if the same scenario brought us Revengeseekerz. Rather than continue with the dustbowl shoegaze and soft balladry of Census Designated, the album does a complete 180. This is some of the most all-out intense music they’ve ever made, an inferno of raw thoughts that pushes everything—rap, pop, voice, their artistic persona—to the breaking point.
What kind of revenge is being sought here? Maybe revenge against industry shenanigans, revenge against people trying to see Jane fail, revenge against the world. Or maybe this is revenge without a referent, revenge as a state of mind. There are so many reasons to be defensive as an artist now, especially one with a very online, parasocial fanbase. Revenge is like an attack stance, a vehicle to talk their shit and go berserk. Jane’s singing and screaming, shapeshifting and sinning, telling haters who dare speak ill to kill themselves. They’re spamming Palkia battle cries and comparing themselves to Avril Lavigne. “Three years ago I could’ve touched a million/Three years ago I had that magic in my hand,” Jane declares at the start, knowing they’ve struck it again.
“Hyper” and “maximal” aren’t enough to describe the extreme overload here. It reminds me of the way a computer with a low-level GPU shudders while straining to render something high-res. The flash-fire finale to “Professional Vengeance” erupts like a motherboard under magma. Sprees of giddy rap bleed into EDM pop with layers and sublayers of screams that ripple into pure noise. Every empty inch is thronged with chants and record scratches and video game samples that sound like personal heirlooms. It captures the same live-time thrill I get listening to Jane’s leroy mashup tapes and NTS sets—a wonderfully unpredictable anarchy. “Experimental Skin” judders so frenetically it sounds like they recorded the song and then let five DJs tweak it out by jitter-clicking every button at once. It’s hard to fathom that just two months ago Jane released an album of patiently unfurling rock under an alt account.