Jo Millett – It Hurts (2025)
When Jo Millett was a teenager, they turned to music as a solace and therapy to deal with their dyspraxia. At age 16, the guitar was a hopeful route to feeling safe, secure, and a little more “healed” in a way. Since then, the UK-based Millet have “…taken their time to find their sound and are very excited to share their music with you! Yes, YOU!” The first release, Mountain Roads, was in April 2024, with Taking Trains released in November of the same year. Today, we dive into Millett’s music with their most recent single, ‘It Hurts’.
The first and last single in 2025, ‘It Hurts’, is not only turning heads at Millett’s live performances, but is gaining them a following far beyond their Norwich borders. Recorded and produced by Tom Joy, with vocal and backing vocal arrangement and production by Alexander Carson, ‘It Hurts’ lies somewhere between 70s rock and 90s indie-rock with an alternative rock tone tipping the edges.
Melodically, ‘It Hurts’ is a swirl of crashing drums, soaring guitars, a steady bass, and Millett’s rich but gritty vocals. Millett mentions that the “real turning point… was when Tom added the lead guitar line to the choruses”; however, as much as that guitar line strengthens the song, it is the overall combination, bound with Millett’s vulnerable vocals, that gives the track its weightiness.
Dragging you back to the sounds of yesteryear, Millett breathes life into vintage rock music; however, while the melody is old-school, the theme itself is timeless. A song about communication, family relationships, and all the complexities existing therein, it’s a raw message expressed in a raw form. Millett explains:
“It’s about the fact that my dad really struggled with being a single parent after my mum died when I was 7. He’s gotten a lot better since then, but he was quite bad when I was younger; a lot of shouting, a bit of threatening here and there, quite a scary environment for a young child. The fact he has gotten better and our relationship is better hurts in its own way, because it feels like I can’t address the old problems without seeming ungrateful that he has changed. The old problems still affect me, and I’m not over them. That’s what the words are about.”
Find out more about Jo Millett on their Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bandcamp and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
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