Entertainment

CD review: Mac DeMarco’s ‘Salad Days’

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Smith Galtney

Three and a half stars

Mac DeMarco Salad Days

It’s never too early to get fussy about success. After setting a thin wedge of the Internet ablaze and selling out 1,400-seat venues, it seems Mac DeMarco—the one-man band who sounds all dopey and sincere in his bedroom studio, but who gets naked and covers Limp Bizkit onstage—is having a career crisis of sorts. “Passing out pieces of me,” he sings at one point on his third album, Salad Days. “Don’t you know nothin’ comes free?” Such peril being a Pitchfork commodity …

Recording once again in an unkempt living space, DeMarco conjures an atmosphere lousy with Viceroy smoke and Lutz crumbs. (I’m trying my best not to say “slacker.”) Titles like “Let Her Go,” “Treat Her Better” and “Chamber of Reflection” hint at very deep thoughts, but his voice—a lovechild of JJ Cale and Al Stewart—always maintains an even strain. As far as indie-star indulgence goes, it’s pretty unassuming. And totally irresistible.

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