Five Easy Hot Dogs - Mac Demarco: Review

Mac DeMarco

is one of the defining indie artists of the 2010's. Across the decade he carved out a niche combining indie folk with psychedelic pop that then exploded into its own entire style of indie malaise. As his career goes on Mac's music has become increasingly patient with his previous album Be The Cowboy unfolding slower than any before it.

Review by Lav:

Like many longtime fans of Mac DeMarco's music, I was pretty unimpressed by his 2019 album Be The Cowboy. After reviewing the record and listening to both the demo collections released following it, it was very clear to me that Mac wants to be making music with a gentler hand than he has in the past. While there are moments like the wonderful lead single Nobody where that works, listening to it for an entire album kind of made me forget why I was ever such a fan of Mac's in the first place. This instrumental album does less to quell those fears and more to shift them. The long absence didn't initially worry me and the album's decision to take on the thematic device of live on the road actually had me excited. But the results of the record are inconsistent in a way that doesn't so much feel like Mac ran out of creativity, just motivation.

The decision to release an almost entirely instrumental album that all feels EXTREMELY familiar to stuff Mac has done in the past does sound pretty bad, but the record is actually a little better than I would have anticipated if you told me that going into it. There are plenty of moments where the intimate performance style does conjure up something fittingly nostalgic about being a musician living life on tour. 

Gualala kicks off the record and savor Mac's voice while he counts the song in because it's the only time you'll hear it on the record. It's a pretty good start to the album that displays many of its main instrumental motifs pretty clearly. The best and most flavorful addition onto that core sound comes on Chicago, which has a pseudo hook where excess instrumentation slides into the mix in an incredibly satisfying way that adds to the already pretty infectious guitar work underneath.

The way the album is set up was kind of interesting to me at first as well. The song's don't have specific names just labels of the places where they were either recorded or at least conceptualized. This means that songs called Edmonton and Edmonton 2 do share some kind of sonic cohesion beyond just their names. But even that is a bit inconsistent because on the albums best song Vancouver Mac delivers an exceedingly charming little number that combines clacky percussion with an irresistibly slick guitar riff. But on Vancouver 2 that uniqueness completely unfolds and the results are painfully anonymous, only for it to rush right back into Vancouver 3 which is pretty good all over again. 

This is how the record goes. It's very pleasant to listen to throughout, though I have an easier time telling songs on most ambient albums apart than I do here. Occasionally songs may stick around for the wrong reasons, like Portland with its weird warbly synth line that feels like it's being piped in from a different song entirely. But for the most part, these instrumentals are weirdly both impressive and underwhelming in their anonymity. 

For a style that Mac himself helped innovate, he seems to be falling into a pretty anonymous interpretation of it. Beyond the few listens of the project I did for this review I can't imagine much reason to return to it. Even if I was looking for the distinct style and effect that the record delivers there are plenty of Mac songs that do exactly that. Taking the vocals out of the equation hasn't added anything via subtraction. If this album was perfectly executed throughout I could at least say it was thoroughly effective at pulling off what it sought out to, but given the flaws it has I don't see much of any reason to return to it. 5.5/10

For more indie check out my review of Weyes Blood's And In Darkness, Heart Aglow here