THIS OLD DOG

This Old Dog is one of those albums I respect more than I actually love.

There’s a lot to appreciate here. Mac DeMarco strips away some of the woozier guitar effects of his earlier records and replaces them with acoustic guitars, soft synths and drum machines. The result is warmer, cleaner and more intimate. Critics noticed the same evolution: Pitchfork praised how minimal and carefully constructed the arrangements were, while NME saw the record as Mac moving away from his goofy public persona toward something much more reflective.

And lyrically, this might be one of his most personal records. Aging, relationships and especially his complicated feelings toward his absent father run through the album. “My Old Man” is about the uncomfortable realization that he can see parts of his father appearing in himself, while the beautiful closing track “Watching Him Fade Away” deals with losing someone you have a deeply complicated relationship with.

I kept waiting for the song.

That one track that would suddenly make the whole album click. The moment where I'd think, okay, THIS is why I needed to hear this record.

There are definitely highlights. “On the Level” has that hypnotic Mac DeMarco atmosphere, “For the First Time” is effortlessly beautiful, and “Moonlight on the River” finally breaks the album's calm surface with a genuinely strange, unsettling ending.

But for much of the record, everything is so relaxed and restrained that songs can start blending into one another. The melodies are pleasant, the production is tasteful and Mac's songwriting is clearly accomplished — yet I rarely felt genuinely surprised.

Interestingly, even Pitchfork's positive review identified something close to this criticism: there wasn't much wrong with the album; rather, DeMarco was deliberately keeping his ambitions modest, refining a sound he already owned instead of radically pushing it somewhere new.

That's exactly where I land.

This Old Dog feels like sitting outside on a warm afternoon with absolutely nowhere to be. It's comfortable. It's sincere. It's melancholic without becoming miserable. And sometimes that's exactly the album you want.

I just kept waiting for something to interrupt that comfort.

Favorite tracks: For the First Time, On the Level, Moonlight on the River, Watching Him Fade Away

Final verdict: 7.1/10

A beautifully produced, intimate and mature Mac DeMarco record with plenty to admire. But while I enjoyed the journey, I spent too much of it waiting for a destination that never quite arrived.