Willie Schube ordered Caesar’s salad at Caesar’s Palace.
It’s hard to sound both uninterested and engaging. Few do it better than Mac DeMarco, who’s turned that sort of slacker pop into an art form. His music is surprisingly nuanced and cohesive—signifiers not typically assigned to the jangle-y glam rock DeMarco creates. But what sets DeMarco apart from other 90s-influenced, loose indie rock is a strong sense of cohesion from song to song and a pinpoint aesthetic vision. “Brother,” the second single from his upcoming album Salad Days, is another step in this direction. His guitar is slippery, his voice deadpan, but the interaction between drums and bass keeps the song pulsing under DeMarco’s heavy lyrical and melodic weight.
“Brother” finds DeMarco more somber than his audience is probably used to, as the song begins, “You’re no better off/Living your life/Than dreaming at night.” The heft of DeMarco’s lyrics affect his vocal delivery in an unfamiliar way. His willingness to change things up from time to time keeps his music fresh. “Brother” is a far cry from first single “Passes out Pieces”—an upbeat, faux-horn (played on a synth) track—but equally attention grabbing. It’ll be interesting to see if the tonal changes apparent on Salad Days’ first two singles are album wide phenomena or isolated incidents. Either way, these early peaks into the new album have displayed a dude seemingly too ambivalent to mature doing just that. Rad.
Salad Days arrives April 1st via Captured Tracks.
Read Peter Holslin’s interview with Mac DeMarco.
