“Salad Days” is Mac DeMarco’s follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2012 album “2,” an album that brought DeMarco out of the obscure and into the foreground of idolization from indie music fans.

Listening to DeMarco’s music is like entering his gapped-toothed, Canadian head and swimming through songs filled with catchy melodies, soulful leads and casually sung vocals.

The thing that is so striking about DeMarco’s music is the fact that it’s very atypical from what you would expect from an indie artist who is viewed as being very serious about their craft.

From the quality of his records, which are recorded down to the off-brand equipment, DeMarco manages to take lo-fi quality music mixed with lonely lover lyrics and blend it into a unique sound that could only come from a DeMarco record.

He’s indie music’s very distant relative that it doesn’t want to acknowledge, but secretly loves.

The beautiful thing about DeMarco’s music is that it redefines what indie music can accomplish. His music is simple, to the point and proves that you don’t necessarily have to make music that is so intelligent and complicated that you have to research every little reference.

Lyrically, “Salad Days” is a departure from “2” in a very mature way. DeMarco has stated he no longer wanted to make songs about nothing. While “2” still maintains some of his greatest hits thus far, “Ode to Viceroy” and “My Kind of Women,” songs on “Salad Days” explore DeMarco’s state of being.

Solitude and fighting against conforming to the nine to five lifestyle, along with his relationships, are frequent subjects in the album and are very well realized. “Salad Days” picks up on a DeMarco who eloquently expresses the question we often ask ourselves – how do we fit into this world?