My lasting memory of seeing Montreal duo Majical Cloudz perform is singer Devon Welsh’s maniacal stare – huge, unwavering eyes that burned into the air. No matter that producer Matthew Otto was prodding keyboards behind him, Welsh seemed solitary. Similarly, their second album bears that sense of being alone in a room full of people. Their electronic pop songs detail the breakdown of a relationship with the sad detachment of someone who feels misunderstood. Melancholic synth washes delicately build as Welsh sings about how he’ll “try not to be so blue” (the unsettlingly sad So Blue) or about being let down (on the minimalist, R&B-spiked Change). All of this might be an inescapable bummer if it weren’t for the album’s more absurdist moments, such as the majestic Silver Car Crash, which is jolted by jagged choir samples and adds surrealism to the sorrow. The overall effect is of a bow-tied cabaret crooner singing to no one: awkwardly intense but, if you steal a glance, completely beguiling.
