Montreal songwriter Sean Nicholas Savage's music always contained an essence of melodrama, settling into the details of the dreamily distant synth pop of 2013's Other Life or the dancey yet melancholic moods of 2018's Screamo. With Life Is Crazy, Savage tears away all the extraneous sounds he usually relies on, stripping his songs down to a minimal core of piano, vocals, and gripping string arrangements designed more for musical theater than rock clubs. This move toward more cinematic arrangements amplifies the emotional intensity that's usually obscured by upbeat instrumentals, exposing a side of Savage that's as raw and unguarded as it is achingly tender. Life Is Crazy comes on the heels of Please Thrill Me, a musical penned by Savage that included performances from TOPS vocalist Jane Penny and some of Savage's other longtime friends from Montreal's music scene. Two songs from the musical, "Thrill Me" and the magnificent "I Believe in Everything," are included in recorded form on Life Is Crazy, and much of the album is cast in a similar searching mood as these songs. While the dramatic crooning and robust, overstated performances of songs like "Years from Tonight" are in some ways unlike anything Savage has attempted on previous albums, their sentiments of wonderstruck curiosity and romanticized perspectives on life and relationships have always been part of his work. The show tune format of "Nothing as It Seems" and the Disney-influenced choruses of songs like "A Moment" could easily be reworked as the kind of upbeat synth pop tracks that have appeared on earlier albums. Life Is Crazy succeeds because of Savage's whole-hearted commitment to the trademark elements of musical theater -- the pristine string arrangements, themes of yearning to find one's place in the world, and an overriding sense of pathos that's larger than life -- without losing touch with the musical personality that made his work before this so unique.