Tops Bury the Key (Green/Yellow)

Tops - musicians David Carriere, Jane Penny,Marta Cikojevic, and Riley Fleck - write timelessmusic that reliably threads immediacy and depth.Bury the Key, their first full-length since 2020 andwith new label home Ghostly International, is acaptivating reintroduction for the Montréal band:ever refined, undoubtedly masters of their melodiccraft yet unafraid of evolving and testingthemselves 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 ofteninhabited by fictional figures, their glowing,grooving, self-produced songs draw from personalobservations: intimacy (both inside and outside theband), toxic behavior, drug use, and apocalypticdread. When recording started, they noticed a shiftand leaned in, jokingly dubbed "evil Tops," saysPenny. "We're always kind of seen as a soft band orlike naive or friendly in a Canadian way, but wemade it a challenge to really channel the worldaround us." Through the lens of a looming epochand the clarity that comes with age, Tops dip into amore sinister disco realm with Bury the Key, givingtheir soft-focus sophisti-pop a sharpened edge.