Touched By The Stuff

On their 2021 debut Surrounded, Toronto trio Motorists fed jangly pop tunes through a post-punk filter, resulting in an album of lively, jagged hooks. With their sophomore effort Touched by the Stuff, Motorists dive full force into melody and over-the-top power pop, dropping much of the punk edginess of their previous album but keeping the energy crackling. A song like "Call Control" is a perfect snapshot of how the band is changing throughout this album. There are some of the chorus-bathed guitar tones that defined Surrounded, and the lyrics center on working grueling jobs and making sacrifices to pursue independent artistry, recalling the personal bent of the bands most effective tunes. Instead of the distanced college rock ennui they reveled in earlier, however, the song bounces with the same major-scale party power of Cheap Trick or the jumpy pep of Sloan. "Decider" is much the same, with bright acoustic guitars and redlined drums pushing the song through its multi-colored melodies. "L.O.W." brings in a touch of self-conscious, Weezer-esque hard rock to the equation, with guitar leads just as big as the dual vocal harmonies. There are subtleties that add to the overall enormity of the production as well. One-note piano parts and organ lines are buried deep in the mix of otherwise meat-and-potatoes rocker "Tall Tower," and "Sweet William" arranges its different layers of guitars in neatly organized stacks. Closing track "Light Against the Shade" shifts gears entirely toward drum machines and synthesizers, but somehow still fits into the larger pop picture. Touched by the Stuff is not quite far enough removed from Motorists earlier work to sound like its from a completely different band (though new drummer Nick Mckinlay takes over for former bandmember Jesse Locke, whose timekeeping heavily contributed to the groups earlier sound), but its a decidedly new chapter for them. Motorists embrace of power pop feels fun and lighthearted even when the lyrics are dire, and the albums taut construction makes it immediately enjoyable even without deep record collector knowledge of the various other artists theyre nodding to and extrapolating on. ~ Fred Thomas