Devours
Sports Car Era
Surviving The Game
Now five LPs into the game, both the musical style Jeff Cancade has been plying as Devours as well as his recurring themes and lyrical poignancy have become familiar to those who’ve been tracking the manically omnivorous electro-pop project. New record Sports Car Era is Devours through and through; any fragment of its chiptune bleeps or a single one of its biting quips is sure to bear Cancade’s stamp. While Sports Car Era doesn’t reinvent or revolutionize Devours’ remit, it does recapitulate many of the successes of its precedents in a strongly distilled, hooky, and at times downright aggressive form.
All the hallmarks of classic Devours material make their presence felt within the first couple of Sports Car Era‘s tracks: chopped up throwback rave pastiche, caffeinated hyperpop, and breathy ethereal chimes. But pay attention to their arrangement and delivery and you’ll notice more abrupt gear shifts and on-a-dime drops, not to mention a subtle but constant feeling of rhythmic pressure and intensity, even when Cancade’s still painting in brighter pastels. The descending, sing-song lilt of the chorus of “Swordswallower” belies just how driving and dark the verses are. “Quite Possessed” feels equally muscular and menacing. Even on an ostensibly softer song like the fragile “November”, there’s a stripped-down and dialed in focus on the pulsing bass, part Jan Hammer, part Berlin.
The social themes taken up in Homecoming Queen crop up again – the title cut laments being “squeezed out of the city and priced out of existence” – as well as the darkly confessional break-up/kiss off tracks Cancade’s become known for. Sometimes it’s pure poison pen vitriol, but there’s often a melancholy streak running through those sorts of tunes, either pining for a romance more idyllic than the stumbling and awkward failings of reality, as on the incredibly catchy “Loudmouth”, or in touching upon the complexities of beauty standards and expectations regarding the performance of gender in dating on “XY” (“I catch myself every time I start to deepen my voice during sex”).
This isn’t to say that Sports Car Era feels especially dark or harrowing throughout – we’re still talking about someone capable of singing “I promised you once I would never write / About our failed relationship, baby I lied” with wit and verve on a track called “Canada’s Next Top Fat Otter”. But Cancade’s charm and humour’s always been rooted in an unyielding honesty in his songwriting, no matter how artful. When the title track closes with the refrain “Somedays I just wanna help you burn it down”, there’s no artifice or poise, just raw disillusionment. Recommended.
