Mac DeMarco
Salad Days

Premise: this is my first review, so please don't break my legs like breadsticks. With that said, let's proceed with this review.

First of all, who is Mac DeMarco?? This 23-year-old fellow debuted under the name "Makeout Videotape," but it was a sort of trial run in the music world. The real debut happened with "Rock and Roll Night Club," followed by "2," which I would have loved to review, but unfortunately, I learned that there were already two reviews (exactly). Overall, his music is an amalgam of "Jangle Pop", "Psychedelia" (mainly linked to the previously mentioned style), Lo-Fi, "College Rock" with generous sprinkles of "Surf Rock" and influences from the '50s and '80s, all mixed with a kind of melancholy that characterizes today's Indie Rock. His voice swings between the drunken and the calmness of a weekend in the Bahamas, seemingly cheeky little songs but with complex melodic interweavings that confuse and then satisfy the senses, laying a veil of notes to cover yourself and sleep sweet dreams. Anyway, Mac has ultimately acquired a sound all his own, a sound that you recognize from the first note and exclaim: "Oh! It's that stoner with the gapped teeth (Get the London Look, so to speak)."

Now let's move on to the album, so where to start………….. Mmmmmmmmm first off, let's say that "Salad Days" is a more mature album than its predecessor, more melancholic than the schizoid "2", but with an evolution of the sound that is not highly marked; he himself stated, "I didn't want to freak anybody out with a huge sound change. I wanted to transition without changing the vibe too much. The mood for Salad Days is, 'Fuck man! I was just on tour for a year and a half and I'm tired!" and indeed tiredness is a major and defining element of the record.

Overall, the album is well made, just a notch below "2". Personally, I really, really, really liked it, and all the songs are noteworthy. The most significant tracks (for me) on the record are: "Blue Boy" with its sweet and warm refrain, the introspective "Brother," the ethereal "Chamber of Reflection," the incredibly stoned "Passing Out the Pieces," the romantic "Treat Her Better," and the concluding "Johnny Odyssey," leaving you with the bittersweet feeling of having listened to the whole record greedily, savoring and exhausting it to the core, after understanding and absorbing all its nuances and anxiously awaiting DeMarco's return and his appearance (don't kill me) as the "prince of Indie," hoping he doesn't have disastrous falls.

My rating is more like a 4 and a half.