Album Review: Mac DeMarco - "Guitar"

Mac DeMarco's new album is a set of short, intimate and sparsely recorded songs. Guitar's flaws result in another niche project that only the hardcore fans would get the most out of. I'll stick with listening to records like McCartney instead.

Mac's Record Label - 2025

Mac DeMarco, the Canadian singer and songwriter, was on quite the roll since his breakout album 2 from 2012. Two years after, Salad Days propelled the artist even further from being an underground artist towards one that even huge mainstream artists namecheck. 2017's This Old Dog is his career best and cemented his status as one of the most captivating singer songwriters in the indie scene. It proved that DeMarco wasn't just a silly goofball but a mature, retrospective goofball. Like many, I had high hopes for his future as an artist after the success from This Old Dog, and he can only go up from here, right? 2019 brought on his next project, Here Comes the Cowboy, which aside from some charming singles, it is a dry, middling project that I haven't really wanted to return to since. It not only had some stuff that shouldn't have left the cutting room floor, but it didn't seem like a finished or completed project either. The same goes even more so for his projects he's released since. 2023's Five Easy Hot Dogs is interesting on the surface with its free spirited road trip journal concept, but at its best it is quick, throwaway muzak that's left for the hardcore fans to consume. Later that year, he released an even more tiresomely niche project titled One Wayne G, which is essentially a file dump of 199 demos and instrumentals that last a ridiculously exhaustive nine hours. I'm sorry but after the immediate disappointment of Five Easy Hot Dogs, I'm not listening to all that, let alone any more demos or unfinished junk. It's once again another project that's left for the remaining diehard fans who've followed him up until that point.

Now that it's been two years since his last project and over six years since his last "finished" project (or at least one that sounds completed), I've been dying for an album that's as solidifying and rewarding as This Old Dog. Last week, his new sixth studio album has arrived, simply titled Guitar. In presentation, Guitar's set of short, intimate and sparsely recorded songs is something to appreciate over his most recent projects. Though not fully fleshed out like This Old Dog or even Here's Comes the Cowboy, Guitar sounds very quickly put together in a relaxed manner, like he recorded it in an isolated cabin for a span of a week, similar to that of classic records like McCartney or McCartney II. The instrumentation is acoustic, sparse, and quiet, almost like a collection of warm lullabies. These backing instrumentals may sound pleasant on their own, but DeMarco chooses to use a higher, whining, almost out of tune register for the majority of these tunes, and it's borderline unlistenable to me. It's frustrating because he does have a lovely, warm voice but he purposefully chooses to not use it but rather an ugly whimpering croon. When he does use his more normal register, like on the tracks "Punishment," "Knockin," and "Holy," they're immensely better as a result. It's a night and day difference.

It's not that these songs are really memorable or anything. They're sweetly sung and sincere but they're not really songs I need to focus on or listen to ever again. It's easily background. At least there's more substance here than from the Five Easy Hot Dogs instrumentals, but the bar is literally set so low that you can literally walk over it. Despite my appreciation for its intimacy, warmth, and outwardly quick, demo like approach, Guitar isn't what I'm looking for for a new Mac DeMarco album. Despite its flaws, I'd rather listen to McCartney for this type of "being alone in a cabin in the woods" aesthetic he's really been trying very hard to imitate as of late. It's far from the type of record I'm hoping for from DeMarco. Even Here Comes the Cowboy, as middling as it is, has more personality and charm. If someone does find exactly what they're looking for on Guitar, then more power to them. I don't even know if we're going to get an album that sounds as wholistically complete and satisfying as This Old Dog. Mac clearly doesn't want to make music like that and it shows. If he doesn't care, then why should I?

My Rating: 5 / 10

Favorite Songs: "Punishment," "Knockin," Holy," "Sweeter," "Home"