Bury The Key

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.

1. Stars Come After You

2. Wheels at Night

3. ICU2

4. Outstanding in the Rain

5. Annihilation

6. Falling on my Sword

7. Call You Back

8. Chlorine

9. Mean Streak

10. Your Ride

11. Standing at the Edge of Fire

12. Paper House