Jay Arner - Jay II

Pitchfork 70

Musician/producer Jay Arner is a sharp, efficient, exacting songwriter in the mold of fellow Vancouverites the New Pornographers. At his best, he smuggles expressions of despondence or alienation into airtight, earwormy gems with enviable ease. While 2014’s New Dimensional, the lone release from his Energy Slime duo with Jessica Delisle, traded in truncated bursts of psychedelic garage rock, that’s hardly Arner’s default. He’s predisposed to plunder and pastiche 1980s FM oldies: 2013 solo debut Jay Arner bore Smiths, A-Ha, and New Order echoes, while “Broken Glass (In the Hall of Shattered Mirrors)” half-cannibalized Cyndi Lauper single “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

More taut, concise, and sweeter than its predecessor, Jay II finds its namesake lovingly and enthusiastically exploring new influences and reference points. The nagging “Personal Line” triples an irrepressible core melody with starchy guitar, phased synthesizer, and ramshackle piano: it’s a doting period homage, with lyrical nods to Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” and Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309.” Slick with faux, angelic falsetto, “Crystal Ball” makes for a nervy New Wave comet; “What’s Reality?” suggests the Phil Spector-era Ramones rocking a sock hop.

Jay II is strongest when Arner turns more introspective. On “Back to School” and “Earth to Jay,” he casts himself as a weary stranger to the music scene that nurtured and continues to support him. That’s a sensation familiar to all aging musos hanging in beyond a certain age range; suddenly, everything seems like a blur. Elsewhere, his woes are uncategorized but no less pressing. “I’ve got the perfect life blues again,” he admits in angelic triplicate on the flanged, syrupy “World of Suffering.” There’s no laundry list of injustices or outrages to be found here: just an uber-compressed pop rune that muses on the sheer, disorienting helplessness that results from realizing that we’ll never be able to help everyone. Maybe, just maybe, stolid songcraft can be rescue enough.