Japandroids
set fire to the past on their fourth and ostensibly final album, 2024's anthemically bittersweet
Fate & Alcohol
. The Canadian duo of singer/guitarist
Brian King
and drummer
David Prowse
built a career making music that sounds like it's the end, as if every song is the last call at the bar or one last wild-eyed push towards the stage before the lights go up. It's the reason their 2009 debut,
Post-Nothing
, was so revelatory, an album that somehow managed to boil down a stadium-sized rock wallop into a series of scalding three-chord mantras. Really, nothing has changed over the course of four albums, and
is as direct and flesh-burning as anything that came before. For sure,
have gotten better at what they do, and there's a precision to their sonic bombast that feels both accomplished and hard-won. If in the past
King
's lyrics often consisted of single repeated phrases, it was because that's all he needed to get the band's ideas across, to burn the effigy of desire and heartbreak into your skin. Again,
finds him in a similar state of zen, writing about love, loss, failure, and sobriety in ways that feel like someone who's been through tough times and accepted who they are, even as they strive to be better. Yet, even here,
has matured. This is especially clear on the opening "Eye Contact High," which could work as a stream-of-consciousness spoken word poem. A thrilling evocation of romantic longing, the song sparks on moments that feel lived through, as when
runs out of a bar to try and chase down the object of his longing, singing, "I careened around the corner, saw the 505/Looking for you, baby, but blinded by the light/The night was numbing, ain't no one left/Just me, the city, and a cigarette." He carries this feeling of wistful pugnacity throughout the album, even during moments of stark self-reflection. In "Chicago," a diner waitress reads him and his girlfriend to filth with the city's particular brand of no B.S. clarity, saying, "Aren't you tired of being tired all the time? Girl, your eyes are awfully red/As for you, boy, ain't hard to tell in love with it all, never want it to end." Whether the song is about a toxic relationship, or addiction, or both seems to be the point, and
calling himself out has the feeling of finally hitting bottom. Throughout all of this,
play with a bashing intensity, underscoring
's seething vocals with shimmering swaths of fuzz-distorted guitars and
Prowse
's walloping trash-can drumming.
is the kind of album that gets into your bloodstream and lingers, ever so slightly shifting the way you see the world and your place in it. If it really is the end for
, it's a farewell that feels like it could go on forever. ~ Matt Collar