Review: Majical Cloudz - Impersonator

"This fucking guy looks like Ian MacKaye." were the first words to appear in my head during Majical Cloudz show in Minneapolis the other night. Granted at the time I knew little to nothing about these guys, other than their instrumental spot on Grime's 2012 hit Visions, I was honestly expecting more songs along the lines of that; more pointless synth pop jams. They were opening for Youth Lagoon and with my reasonable hatred for opening bands, I thought I had the right to hold that opinion. The two step on stage. The crowd is silent, and waits. Frontman and Fugazi-meets-Iceage band member look-a-like Devon Welsh scans the crowd, and quite intensely I might add with his piercing, distant stare. He mumbles a few words about the tour and the songs rather awkwardly. His programmer Matthew Otto stand by his side, but only that. No supportive quality radiated from him as his thick, dark haired covered his eyes. Only a goofy grin was visible. Welsh stand in the middle of the stage, with only a mic in hand and a synth line begins playing behind him. He looks up and taps his foot. Impersonator's 2nd track "This is Magic" begins playing, and the moment truly was.

Majical Cloudz writes sad songs, and the album does exactly what the live show did. There were no surprises here and I'm thankful for that. The duo come off completely vulnerable on this release and take pride in their uncomfortable modesty, making it one of the most emotionally important and beautiful records to come out in 2013 thus far. Lyrically, Walsh sings about youthfulness, relationships and innocence, and he does so in a manner where you feel as if he's singing them right to you. There's no fancy instrumentation or effects that go through these tracks whatsoever and his vocals are nearly dry. I wouldn't have it any way. While a popular trend in today's vocalists is to flood your voice in reverb, he takes a much more straightforward approach and pulls it off incredibly. The naked vocals matches the immensely vulnerable quality to the music in a way where you don't feel like something is missing in the tracks, you're almost completely wrapped up in Walsh's booming, baritone vocals and powerful, defenseless lyrics. On album highlight "Bugs Don't Buzz", Walsh sings, "It pays to be on the edge of existence / just riding the surface" and it makes me feel like I'm naked, just running away from something as fast as I can. Completely vulnerable, just riding the surface of life. I could write about all of the beautifully written lines that occupy these songs, but in all honestly every word sung strikes a chord right in my heart.

Whenever I revisit tracks from Impersonator, I'm instantly taken back to the first night I heard them. Walsh standing on that stage, completely vulnerable both emotionally and physically, standing there on stage with only a single microphone and his plain white t-shirt and a bald head. He had invited the crowd to gather around him on stage for the closing song, "Silver Rings". Unfortunately I hadn't gotten close enough on stage, but as I stood a mere 2 feet away from him, I felt as if I could feel exactly what he felt, what ever that may be, and others on the stage could definitely feel it too as they were closing their eyes or even staring at his for the entire duration song. Walsh simply wants to remind us that he is just one of us. No dehumanization, no secrecy, no metaphor, just poetry that comes straight from memory.

9/10