Having endured his surprisingly quick ascendance to indie stardom,
Mac DeMarco took the breakout success of 2014's
Salad Days in stride and merely carried on with business, refining his trademark blend of wobbly, chilled-out soft rock with increasing quality on outings like 2015's lovelorn Another One and 2017's more introspective This Old Dog. The pranky slacker image that translated as
DeMarco's public persona was certainly earned, but also served as a lazy subterfuge for a rather hardworking artist who records, produces, and plays all the instruments on what has turned out to be quite a lot of material. Padding his three proper albums are various demo collections, mini-albums, instrumental sets, and EPs documenting his process and progress. Now ensconced in Los Angeles, a more tonally suitable geography than any of his previous Canadian or East Coast homes,
DeMarco is seven years into his solo career, making him an established commodity in the indie world. His fourth official album and inaugural release on Mac's Record Label (what else would he call it?) arrives as somewhat of a conundrum.
Here Comes the Cowboy isn't really about cowboys, nor does it have a particularly country-inspired feel. Growing up in prairie-bound Edmonton, he chafed against the cowboy image adopted by the jocks and bullies of his youth and only later adopted the term "cowboy" as a semi-affectionate slang term among his friends. Minimalist in production, lead singles "Nobody" and "All of Our Yesterdays" are grade-A
DeMarco tracks that feel like a continuation This Old Dog's more personal style. Likewise, "On the Square" channels the best parts of his '70s studio pop obsession while the gentle, all-acoustic "K" serves as a winsome and heartfelt love song. ~ Timothy Monger