Mac Demarco - Salad Days (LP)

With his 2012 debut, 2, Canadian songwriter Mac DeMarco offered the world a look into his dazed but brilliant mind's eye, his songs landing somewhere between a hallucinogenic re-imagination of '70s soft rock, oddball outsider jams, and laid-back indie fare. The tunes were somehow both tuneful and antagonistic in the subtlest of ways, and DeMarco easily shifted between characters of the stoned joker and sincere balladeer, playing each remarkably convincingly. Salad Days picks up where the strange vibes of 2 left off, brightening the production and shying away from Mac's more insane impulses for a clearer picture of his immensely cracked idea of what pop music is. By this point, DeMarco's guitar sound is becoming one of his signatures. Mellow, snaking, busy lines of chorus-drenched leads intertwine and chime over the top of thoughtful, sometimes restrained chords. This guitar work shows up at its most melodic on tracks like "Let Her Go" and the standout "Blue Boy," and appears in a more