Over the course of roughly three years, it seems as if Mac Demarco has become every music fan's favorite slacker. With his last album 2 widening his audience and showing him off as a laid-back, slightly stoned romantic of all things domestic, Mac and his band have been enjoying the shine. It's hard not to see an interview or live performance from this guy and not think he's having the time of his life, writing songs and touring. However, on his latest LP Salad Days, Mac Demarco seems to be realizing, in his own way, his mortality; but he's not exactly worried about it.
The opening track, also the title track, sees Mac reminiscing about how his "Salad Days are over" and how people are telling him to "act his own age, and try another year". But instead of seeming bitter or mournful of his growing age, Mac embraces it with the same dreamy, laid-back attitude that he did with tracks from his last LP like "Ode to Viceroy", a track that put Mac's cigarette habit in the forefront.
The opener may be the most directly personal track on the LP, but the rest of the album builds upon the theme of feeling older, or having people tell you to grow up, with Mac and the boys sounding even more relaxed and delightfully out of tune than usual. The tracks "Goodbye Weekend" and "Passing out Pieces" bend and bow in a wonderfully jangly and chilled-out way.
There are plenty of highlights on this LP, that like his last LP, took a few listened to grow, but were overall well worth the effort. The track "Brother" is smooth and reminds me of one of my favorite moments from 2, the ever alluring and engrossing "My Kind of Woman". In fact, it would be easy to simply chalk up Salad Days as being a slightly more mature and fully realized version of 2, however, I believe that takes away from what Salad Days is actually trying to do; show that even though he may be older, or famous or whatever, Mac Demarco is still the same old guy-- Un-tuned guitar and all.
I thought this album was pretty great, maybe not as big a leap from 2 as it could of been. However, I don't think we should be too hard on Mac at this point, he's still young (physically and musically) and he has so much style and sincerely enjoyable tunes that I'm just happy that I have an entire other LP to love from him.
8.5/10
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