You never knew exactly what Malkmus was singing about Mac’s approach to words is more akin to a highway billboard, short and sweet enough to be heard when driving by at 75 MPH.
A great deal of what has been called “indie rock” thrives on being elliptical and obtuse-think Stephen Malkmus, a slacker guitar hero from an earlier generation who has some surface-level similarity with DeMarco, but never wanted to give too much away. There’s a longstanding idea in pop songwriting that, depending on how the words are delivered, you can say a great deal with clichés, and DeMarco’s approach to lyrics has always been disarming in its simplicity. Every brush of acoustic guitar sounds like it’s coming from right in front of you, and when he cuts loose on his electric and gets spacier, as he does during a gnarly freak-out that serves as the coda to the lengthy “Moonlight on the River,” the textures are both rich and thematically appropriate. The bass and drums are so locked-in they seem like a single instrument. His voice is recorded bone-dry to enhance his conversational tone-he sounds like he’s never more than a barstool away. In addition to playing every instrument, he produced and engineered This Old Dog, and the arrangements are minimal and impeccable. Even though they are not derivative, you swear you’ve heard them before because they show such a proficiency for songwriting structure.īy now, DeMarco has mastered the art of recording, at least within the parameters he’s established for himself. Each melodic shift, every turnaround on the chords during the choruses, every bridge-all are exactly where they should be. On a casual listen, DeMarco seems to kick back and let everything fall into place, but his music demonstrates a relentless devotion to craft, with all the fundamentals intact. The move to a more “classic” sound suits DeMarco’s music, and it’s also a reminder that what at first glance seems like laziness might actually be brutal efficiency.
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If 2 brought to mind a dank basement, the best songs here throw open the windows and let in the sunshine. “One Another” twinkles like an earlier generation’s soda jingle, with a little slouch that invites finger snaps with every backbeat. “Baby You’re Out” tumbles beautifully through its chord changes like a soccer ball falling down a stairwell that manages to hit every fourth step. The title track brings to mind Little Joy in its unhurried and confident sense of swing, and DeMarco’s natural warmth and weariness shine through. This approach brings to mind singer-songwriters of an earlier era, particularly iconoclasts like Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, and JJ Cale. For a guy who seems to live life off the cuff and in the moment, his music feels more timeless. There’s more acoustic guitar and less processing, which frees it from the post-chillwave context of his earlier music.
Compared to the two records before it, the new album is less cluttered, never using two words when one will do, and generally going easy on the woozy guitar effects.
But This Old Dog, DeMarco’s third album, does show some signs of growth. The dirty funk groove of “Choo Choo” is playful, a far cry from the album’s otherwise quiet and reflective mood-reminding listeners of his sense of humor with a cunning wink.At this point, a radical change-up for DeMarco would be weird-he’s got his style, it works, and he’s sticking with it.
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Of course, it wouldn’t be a Mac DeMarco album if it didn’t feature a love song or two, and he dutifully delivers on the plainspoken, romantic “K” and “Heart to Heart.” He tones down his usual jocularity throughout, but it’s not absent-take “Little Dogs March,” on which he kicks the cowboy image up a notch by adding foot taps that sound like a horse’s hooves. He expresses a desire to escape on “Finally Alone” and “Hey Cowgirl,” both of which are punctuated with plucky guitar chords and soft snare hits. Here DeMarco unburdens his mind by embodying the cowboy ideal, an archetype he associates with a simple and unassuming life. His fourth LP, Here Comes the Cowboy, is mellower. On 2017’s This Old Dog, Mac DeMarco got serious-the LA-based Canadian singer-songwriter tackled personal themes like aging and family relationships head-on with slow, laidback melodies that went down easy.
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