Canadian singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco has the sort of larger-than-life personality one might not usually associate with an indie rock artist. He chain-smokes, cross-dresses, cracks dick jokes and allegedly sticks his fingers up various orifices at concerts. His first album, 2012′s Rock n’ Roll Night Club, was an irony-drenched, post-Blue Velvet tribute to “rock n’ roll” that served as the perfect accoutrement to this persona. But though DeMarco’s kept the sleaze intact, he’s disavowed his past work and moved into progressively more mature territory.
His third and latest album, Salad Days, is where his music makes a complete split with his persona. It’s essentially a refinement of his previous album 2, which served as his debut as a “serious” artist but still had its share of sleazy jokes. But it’s this refinement that makes all the difference. Though it’s no masterpiece, Salad Days makes a convincing and very natural case for DeMarco as one of the most vital and promising artists in 2010s indie rock.
DeMarco’s a fine songwriter, though not the kind that dazzles the listener with witticisms so much as the kind that could come up with a great riff and a few lyrics if you gave him twenty minutes alone with a guitar. For this reason, it’s easy to dismiss DeMarco’s appeal as largely due to his guitar work. His distinctive tone is slippery yet metallic, the musical equivalent of vegetable oil sliding across a frying pan. It’s one of the most satisfying sounds in rock and it’s what hooked me for the album’s first five tracks.
But as Salad Days makes increasingly more clear as the album progresses, DeMarco doesn’t need to lean on his guitar, his personality or anything else. The latter half of the album is refreshingly diverse, kicking off with the pretty, meandering ballad “Let My Baby Stay” and rolling through psychedelic baroque pop (“Passing Out Pieces”), woozy instrumental rock (“Jonny’s Odyssey”) and who-knows-what (“Chamber of Reflection”). Though these songs are of roughly equal quality to the guitar-driven tracks, they’re the most promising on the album and point at a likely and advisable future direction for DeMarco’s music.
They’re also promising in that they prove that DeMarco is capable of writing more than one song. A lot of indie rockers fall into the trap of repeating the same fully-formed sound over and over again. The consistent sonic palate across most of 2 and the first half of Salad Days put DeMarco in danger of becoming one of these artists. This is why it’s such a relief that songs like “Passing Out Pieces” and “Chamber of Reflection” are included here.
It’s also a relief that there are still some 2-like songs here, because they prove DeMarco is not yet a fully-formed artist. It’s hard to imagine Salad Days as the peak of DeMarco’s career. He’s still only 23, and if this album is any evidence, he’s still got ample sonic territory to explore. Salad Days isn’t quite a masterpiece, but after listening, it’s hard to shake the feeling that one is coming.