Album review: Mac Demarco 'Another One'

Image: Mac Demarco 

It's quite easy to be drawn to the charm Mac Demarco emanates from that gap toothed smile and be consumed by his likeable eccentric-ism that can sometimes override the fact that he is actually a musician.  

Often pictured with a battered cap perched on his wirey bed of hair and a cigarette in hand, Mac's also managed to unknowingly turn a red pair vans into a symbol of himself - although it's apparent that the affable New Yorker is often the exception beyond his unmistakable appearance. 

Another One, Mac Demarco's second album, the follow up to Salad Days was introduced to a pocket of New York via slightly unconventional means. Not long ago in a New York neighbourhood, he orchestrated a listening party where he played the album from his car speaker while serving up hot dogs in exchange for food bank donations.

In similar and slightly more bizarre circumstances he discloses his home address at the end of 'My House By The Water', inviting fans to "Stop on by, I'll make you a cup of coffee", effectively scribing another essential to-do into every New York tourist guide. 

It's apparent that he enjoys the simple things in life: good times and making music. However, deep down someone is clearly chugging away at his heart strings. Both impression this penchant of love songs that are rather a continuation of Salad Days than something completely new. 

Structurally the record is still built around a tapestry of Mac's breezy acoustic notes. His sedative vocal weeps for a long lost lover throughout, although Demarco doesn't strike as a guy to funnel so much heartfelt emotion into his music. At first it could be conceived as fictional, albeit a second LP sewn with heartache rubber stamps these feelings as personal.

'The Way You'd Love Her' bridges the gap between the two albums, vibrato guitar lines brush shoulders with a quaint drum beat, inviting a bluesy guitar solo towards the back end of the track.

He trades his plucky strings for a keyboard and gently pulsing bass in 'Another One'. The record grows more jovial with 'No Other Heart' - this time around a sea-saw bass line wavers in and out of the songs inners.

'Just To Put Me Down' has a more soporific effect simmering the album to a snails pace, just in time for 'A Heart Like Hers' an extremely solemn affair with Mac harking the lyrics "Look at what's become, what's become of poor old me". 

It ignites the question as to where Mac Demarco will go next, he supposedly wrote all these songs in a week, suggesting we wont have to wait long for new material. Will this be the end of such juxtaposing music for a happy-go-lucky character? Maybe, a welcome groove floods 'I've Been Waiting For Her' something we may experience more of in future. 

The album drowns out with water washing up against lonely key notes to paint a vivid picture of Mac's life living beside the Hudson River and of course the open invite to join the idiosyncratic world of Mac Demarco over a cup of coffee. 

Read: 'Album review: The Maccabees - Marks To Prove It'

Mac Demarco plays at Albert Hall, Manchester for Beacons Metro on Saturday 12th September - tickets available here.