Mac DeMarco
seemed to have given up on songwriting after 2019's
Here Comes the Cowboy
. Though the indie star kept his die-hard audience sated with an abundance of new music, it came in the form of 2023's entirely instrumental travel diary
Five Easy Hot Dogs
, and the nearly impenetrable
One Wayne G
, a nearly nine hour-long collection of 199 demo-like sketches.
DeMarco
's sixth proper studio album,
Guitar
, resembles a more traditional approach to pop songcraft, but it also continues down a gloomy path that
has been traveling for a long time, reframing the miscellanea of his recent output as wayside distractions on that path. The 12 songs that comprise
were written, arranged, recorded, and performed solely by
during a 13-day window in November of 2024. The entire album stays in the same gear, somewhere between relaxed and sleepy, every song strolling along at one of two or three subdued tempos with stripped-down, acoustic guitar-heavy instrumentals. The shadow of lost love hovers over most of the songs. "Phantom" utilizes a slippery and melodic bass line to set the scene of a silent house once alive with the laughter of a loving relationship, and the narrator left behind in the grey stillness. "Shining" is similar, expressing regrets for ruining a romance with a restless heart. In fact, so much of
occupies this emotional space, it's not until the familiar warble of
's signature electric guitar tone comes in on "Terror" that the mood lifts, and even then the picture only changes slightly. By and large, the tone is muted and depressive. "Home" limps along in a dour minor key, lamenting lost friendships and a disconnection from a sense of community. "Punishment" forces a smile with its slightly livelier arrangement, but the lyrics are a bleak depiction of alienation and uncertainty.
pulls a similar sleight of hand with "Holy," where low-energy spaghetti Western guitars prop up lyrics of spiritual despair. The brief song lengths, unfinished feel to the production, and slowed pulse of
all contribute to its wintery atmosphere. While it's almost completely free of the goofy character
reveled in with his earliest work, the reflective mood fits his overarching trajectory. This is a rock musician who's been fixated with getting older since he was a much younger man, and every record he's made since 2017's
This Old Dog
has grown increasingly more retiring and inward-looking. Fans who already miss the lo-fi pop charm and stony synthesizers of
's
Salad Days
era will be further estranged by
's plainspoken glumness. For those who can see the album as part of his ongoing evolution as an artist,
is a painfully expressive collection of meek, exhausted beauty. It's not a fun listen by most metrics, but investing some time in its lonely chill eventually reveals a deeper side of
's musical vision, one of slow rumination that's just as valuable as the combustible spark of his earlier days. ~ Fred Thomas