Mac Demarco on stage
image: Suzi Pratt/ Wikimedia Commons

Mac Demarco is exhausted on Here Comes the Cowboy

Mac DeMarco has been on a trajectory of maturity since the release of This Old Dog in 2017. The album looked beyond the indie sensation’s typical goofiness to find introspection and emotional weight. Mac’s development as an artist promised his latest release to be his deepest yet – a claim that the Canadian made himself. And as the first release on his own label, Here Comes The Cowboy is definitely his most personal record.

However, Mac’s presence within the album is evident for the wrong reasons. Both fans and the artist have commented on Mac’s apparent exhaustion. His personality perhaps is not best suited to the whirlwind success he has seen. As much as Here Comes The Cowboy deals with these personal issues, Mac self-identifying as a cowboy alluding to his nature as an outsider, the album reflects Mac’s mood more so in the way that it feels tired.

 The opening title track establishes the exhaustive nature of the album with its repeated phrase and guitar riff giving precedent to the stripped back songwriting heard throughout Here Comes The Cowboy. This is Mac’s most minimal work which, in combination with the slower mood of the album, creates a haze of melancholy. This feeling shrouds the first five tracks as they address themes such as the passage of time and Mac’s desire to escape his home in Los Angeles.

Both fans and the artist have commented on Mac’s apparent exhaustion

Songs such as ‘Nobody’ and ‘Finally Alone’ are infused with Mac’s trademark laid-back guitar and synth sounds. The downbeat mood and ambiguous, sombre lyrics, however, turn what normally produces a relaxed vibe into a directionless wander. There’s nothing wrong with Mac having less fun. This Old Dog proved he can be serious, but these tracks fail to deliver the same emotional connection. Instead, the simplistic structures make each song unremarkable in relation to each other: listening to Here Comes The Cowboy is to drift through the album.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t some moments of excellence in the album. Mac’s use of a soundscape of birds in ‘Preoccupied’ is particularly effective in conveying his mood of exhaustion, creating an intentional imperfection. The pulsating synths of ‘Heart to Heart’ are striking and the chord progression of ‘Little Dogs March’ is some of Mac’s best. Each song on the album has undeniable good sound but as a collection Here Comes The Cowboy feels unrefined and lazy. ‘Choo Choo’ and its repetitive funk riff is a jarring break in the middle of the album, the emotionally fulled chorus of ‘All Of Our Yesterdays’ is drowned out by the dreary vibes of the surrounding tracks and it has to be asked if the album wouldn’t be better off with fewer songs. It’s hard to escape the feeling that the album is just half-baked.

 Fortunately, Here Comes The Cowboy ends on a high note. ‘Baby Bye Bye’ is the most inspired song on the album, eschewing simplicity for a progressive structure, dynamic instrumentation and layered vocals. The jam-packed arrangement of sounds, nicely cluttered and bouncing off each other is how Mac should have been expressing himself throughout the album. It is organically unrefined and perfectly imperfect. The hidden song that follows the soundscape of a Japanese train station in this track seems to parallel the problem with the album, Mac as the cowboy only seems to arrive in full form at the end.

It’s hard to escape the feeling that the album is just half-baked

 It’s a shame that these songs never quite gel together. Individually, they wouldn’t seem amiss in a better album from Mac. It is not that Mac has lost his identity or talent. He is undeniably a unique artist that continues to develop his distinctive sound, it just seems he could have spent a bit more time on this album. Here Comes The Cowboy is still Mac, but maybe the cowboy should rest easy for a little while.

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