TOPS - Bury the Key Review
On their fifth album Bury The Key, Montreal synth-pop mainstays TOPS balance shimmering indie-pop with darker undertones, proving their consistency and evolution after nearly fifteen years.
It seems unfathomable that Montreal synth-pop purveyors TOPS have been around for nearly fifteen years. It feels like just last week I was listening to their debut album Tender Opposites on repeat. Back then I was a fresh-faced student, full of hope and optimism, as well as cheap cider and questionable drugs. Tender Opposites was one of my go-to comedown albums, nursing me back to health as I stared bug-eyed into the morning abyss. Jane Penny’s hazy, dreamlike vocals were the perfect antidote to the debauchery of the night before.
Over a decade later, we arrive at album number five, Bury The Key, said to delve into a darker, heavier side of the band’s psyche. The band have even jokingly referred to themselves as “evil TOPS.” Just as well my comedown days are a distant memory.
A couple of solo projects and an EP aside, this is TOPS’ first full-length release since the seminal I Feel Alive in 2020. It also marks their debut on Ghostly International. The mini-hiatus appears to have paid off, and Bury The Key bears all the hallmarks of a band re-energised, rejuvenated, and reborn. It’s an album packed with catchy melodies and lush instrumentation that will satisfy even the most cynical of indie-pop palates.
But what about “evil TOPS”? Does Bury The Key really herald the arrival of a darker sound? For the most part, it’s business as usual. This is very much what we’ve come to expect from a TOPS record. Shimmering guitars, vibrant synths, and Penny’s distinctive vocals all make a welcome return. However, thematically the record is less summery than usual, drawing on observations of toxic behaviours, drug abuse, and apocalyptic dread. If you were expecting an ear-splitting indie/metal crossover you might be disappointed, but if it’s another sublime slice of 80s-accented indie dream-pop you’re after, then you’re in luck. Bury The Key has all the bases covered.
Opener Stars Come After You is a bright, jaunty track, with a spooky bridge that hints at those darker tones. Wheels At Night is pure 80s synth-pop, evoking neon cityscapes and fluorescent shopping arcades. ICU2 finds the band in their element, with Penny at her most playful: “Boy, you got some stamina. Everlasting like a shutter snapping.” Occasionally, the influences stretch even further back. Summer-of-love flutes appear on the excellent Outstanding in the Rain, while Annihilation is a disco-infused floor-filler, and Your Ride plays out like a eulogy to the dying art of 70s soft rock, à la Fleetwood Mac.
Falling On My Sword is the most experimental moment here, reaching for those aforementioned darker brushstrokes, and the album is all the better for it. A two-minute fusion of shifting time signatures, pulsing basslines, metronomic drums, and, most surprisingly of all, power chords, it’s married together superbly by Penny’s trademark breezy vocals. The song would easily be the highlight of the album if not for the following track, Chlorine. Serving as the album’s keystone, Chlorine effortlessly fuses light and dark. A song of longing and desolation, of walking from bar to bar in search of someone just out of reach, it contains some of Penny’s most unabashed lyrics: “With your hand around my neck, I’m counting my regrets. Pissing in the wind, swimming downstream. Like a whirlwind.” It’s the best song here, and easily one of TOPS’ finest to date.
The latter half of the record plays out beautifully, though it never quite reaches the heights of its blistering middle section. Only Standing on the Edge of Fire, showcasing some of guitarist David Carriere’s finest fretwork, comes close.
TOPS remain something of an enigma. They wear their influences openly, yet have still cultivated their own entirely unique sound. It’s a trick few bands manage, and a testament to how consistent they’ve been over the past decade. Many lesser bands have fallen by the wayside, but TOPS remain resolute, a beacon of hope atop a mountain strewn with broken guitars and battered keyboards. Bury The Key may lack some of the immediacy of their earlier outings, but it still packs a weighty punch and is a worthy addition to an already stellar catalogue.