wowhd.co.uk

Tops - musicians David Carriere, Jane Penny,

Marta Cikojevic, and Riley Fleck - write timeless

music that reliably threads immediacy and depth.

Bury the Key, their first full-length since 2020 and

with new label home Ghostly International, is a

captivating reintroduction for the Montréal band:

ever refined, undoubtedly masters of their melodic

craft yet unafraid of evolving and testing

themselves against different, at times darker tones.

The album faces feelings once locked away,

engaging the give-and-take between happiness,

hedonism, and self-destruction. While often

inhabited by fictional figures, their glowing,

grooving, self-produced songs draw from personal

observations: intimacy (both inside and outside the

band), toxic behavior, drug use, and apocalyptic

dread. When recording started, they noticed a shift

and leaned in, jokingly dubbed "evil Tops," says

Penny. "We're always kind of seen as a soft band or

like naive or friendly in a Canadian way, but we

made it a challenge to really channel the world

around us." Through the lens of a looming epoch

and the clarity that comes with age, Tops dip into a

more sinister disco realm with Bury the Key, giving

their soft-focus sophisti-pop a sharpened edge.