Jane N’ The Jungle’s “Parasite” is not subtle. It does not sneak into your headphones like a thought-provoking podcast or drift softly out of a lo-fi playlist while you sip existential dread out of a novelty mug. No. “Parasite” kicks the door in, points to the strange shimmering thing hovering over your feed, and shouts, “That’s not normal. That’s not human. And it’s eating us.”
Now, this is technically a song about artificial intelligence; the Great Contemporary Boogeyman that, depending on who you ask, is either going to write all your emails or displace every artist from now until the sun explodes. But while most musical attempts to grapple with technology end up sounding like a stoned TED Talk or a confused episode of Black Mirror, Jane N’ The Jungle takes a different route. They crank up the guitars, spit in the eye of the algorithm, and serve the whole thing with a vocal performance from Jordan White that lands somewhere between a war cry and an exorcism.
Produced by Cameron Mizell, who has had a hand in shaping high-gloss chaos for artists like Machine Gun Kelly (“Hollywood Whore”), Avril Lavigne (“Bite Me”), and Jelly Roll (“Dead Man Walking”), the song is sleek in all the ways you want modern rock to be, but still manages to sound dangerous. That’s not an easy balance to strike. A lot of rock these days either polishes itself into sterile oblivion or clings to garage-band grit like it’s a personality trait. Jane N’ The Jungle, thankfully, opts for the third route: actual conviction. “Parasite” is sharp, lean, and deliberately built, like someone’s been sitting with a feeling they can’t quite name, until it finally explodes out as a three-minute sermon with guitars. Mizell’s production doesn’t just elevate the track; it weaponizes it, giving every scream, stomp, and snarl a cinematic punch without ever sanding down the splinters.
Lyrically, “Parasite” avoids the obvious pitfall of making the whole thing about AI in the most literal sense. It’s interested in something primal; the creeping feeling that we’re all slowly becoming less us. Less human, less grounded, more algorithmic. More predictable. The track doesn’t try to analyze AI; it channels the sensation of being outpaced by something you helped build. It doesn’t offer a solution, but that’s kind of the point; there isn’t one… yet. And while tech CEOs are busy rhapsodizing about “disruption,” “Parasite” is already standing in the rubble, screaming back.
It also helps that the band knows how to get out of the way when it matters. The instrumental is tight, propulsive, and doesn’t feel the need to prove itself with a 12-bar solo or unnecessary tempo change. The guitars snarl, the drums punch holes through the mix, and everything else is laser-focused on moving the song forward. It’s rock music that remembers what rock music is for: making noise about things that matter, when silence starts to feel complicit. In short, “Parasite” is a protest song for the age of engagement metrics, and it doesn’t care whether you “liked” it. Listen to it. Loud.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
