Trilogy＜限定盤/Yellow Vinyl＞

On a series of low-key releases that came in quick succession between 2016 and 2019, Canadian singer/songwriter/producer/personality Sean Nicholas Savage constructed a playground for his light, romantic, and ever-so-slightly maudlin songs. These albums -- 2016s Magnificent Fist, 2017s Yummycoma, and 2018s Screamo -- were self-produced affairs released in limited cassette editions, giving the material an air of loose, unseriousness experimentation that felt casual and workshoppy. Trilogy condenses ten of the best moments of these three records into a concise, album-length format, offering up alternate mixes and versions of songs used for videos. This late-2010s era of Savages output often took the form of emotionally driven, synth-aided pop songcraft with wistfully crooned vocals. "Let Me Out" is a great example of this mode, with urgent falsetto vocal hooks and silky guitar lines riding steady, uncluttered sophisti-pop rhythms. Theres also plenty of playfulness throughout the collection, from the goofy electronic drum fills and faux-smooth acoustic guitar flamboyance of "Everything Baby Blue" to the plastic funk-lite instrumental of "Screamo," complete with a sample of a voice screaming "Yeah!" being compulsively over-triggered in rhythm. Like many of his peers in Montreals indie scene, Savages love for 80s FM synth tones, canned pop production, and familiar stock sounds is more sincere than ironic, and he uses these potentially uncool elements to construct authentic expressions on Trilogy. The independent spirit of the reverb-heavy production gives tracks like "Over the Night" a charming amateurishness. Theres a sense that Savage is joyfully trying different approaches to the arrangements, performances, and captures of the sound without much concern for technicality or anything beyond immediate creative gratification. This material has a somewhat muted character, yet at the same time feels more personal and emblematic of a specific zest that didnt come through in the same way on Savages more carefully considered albums. Its a fantastic distillation of this phase of his artistry, one that feels searching and urgent, but also completely at ease with going wherever the songs take him. ~ Fred Thomas