Top Five Bedroom Pop Fetish Albums of 2021: Men I Trust – Untourable Album
Year-End Top 5
Here you have it, folks—it’s the end of the year (yikes!), which means it’s time for SLUG’s Top 5 Albums of 2021! This year, we’ve selected albums from a host of styles that have earned our applause. Wrap your hands around a mug of hot cocoa (or whatever sugar-free, dairy-free, organic substitute you’ve learned to love), get a fire started and let your eyes and ears feast on this fantastic recap of music greatness.
- Claud – Super Monster
- girl in red – if i could make it go quiet
- Kowloon – Come Over
- The Marias – CINEMA
- Men I Trust – Untourable Album
Men I Trust
Untourable Album
Self-released
Street: 08.25
Men I Trust = Phoebe Bridgers + Mac DeMarco
In the first seconds of manipulated synths, Untourable Album catapults a melancholy and surreal ambience. It’s a sad undertone that is manifested somewhere in the instrumentation at all times and subsequently gives Untourable Album the “it” factor. Often this feeling is carried in the synths, sometimes the bass line or sometimes in the vocals. Before I swallowed any of the lyrics, the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia was present on Untourable Album.
The album straddles jazz, pop and alt rock, much like past Men I Trust releases. Their ability to create perfectly meshed, syncopated and subdued grooves is their staple. Untourable Album doesn’t disappoint in this area, most notably with the tracks “Oh Dove” and “Sugar.” They’re the kind of songs you hear once and don’t know how you went on living without hearing them before.
The album as a whole shows another, more vulnerable and mysterious side to Men I Trust—the lyrics are written like prose. After getting the nostalgic feeling on the first listen, I dove into the lyrics and found the past written all over them. From track to track, Untourable Album happens to you the same way life happens to you—the baggage and past trauma you carry never really goes away, but you can learn to groove with it. –Mary Culbertson