Homeshake's sophomore album
Midnight Snack was recorded at the same location as its 2014 debut
In the Shower (Montreal venue The Drones Club), but exhibits a remarkable increase in recording fidelity, as well as songwriting quality and the overall clarity of the project's vision. In its studio incarnation,
Homeshake is basically a solo venture of Peter Sagar, a Montreal-based singer/songwriter who has spent time as
Mac DeMarco's touring guitarist. Much of his material as
Homeshake was written on the road, and has a downtrodden, lonely feeling reflecting his time away from his home and his girlfriend. The music is generally sparse and drowsy, consisting of just a few layers of instruments along with Sagar's falsetto vocals.
Midnight Snack emphasizes the R&B influence evident on previous recordings, adding drum machines and synths along with (or sometimes in place of) the live drums and guitars. Instead of trying to sound like an indie equivalent of
Usher the way that
How to Dress Well and
Autre Ne Veut do,
Homeshake's sound on this album comes closer to the homemade outsider soul of
Jeff Phelps or
Doug Hream Blunt. Sagar likes to play around with the pitch of his vocals, suggesting what would happen if pre-Chocolate and Cheese
Ween were to explore more of a soul-influenced direction. The drumless "Under the Sheets" is the most striking example of this, with warped, hallucinatory vocals drifting over simple bass synth chords, and a brief vocal reference to
Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby" thrown in for good measure. He sounds absolutely devastated on the slow, heartbreaking "Love Is Only a Feeling," and the more uptempo tracks such as "Move This Body" don't sound much more cheerful. Standout tune "Give It to Me" features a stark, bass-heavy trip-hop-like beat along with gentle chimes and more warped vocals crooning a gentle plea for love.
Midnight Snack is a decent, creative late-night downer record that finds Sagar successfully incorporating new elements into
Homeshake's sound, resulting in the project's most assured material yet. ~ Paul Simpson