I’ve never seen a psychic, and not because I’m a nonbeliever; if anything, I think I’m too credulous, an easy target for a wannabe mystic with a convincing tone of voice. Not so for Sam Bielanski, singer-songwriter of the Toronto band PONY and no such easy mark. The title of their band’s third album comes from something a clairvoyant once said: that Bielanski harbored a “dark spirit attachment,” of which the expert could cleanse them for (and here’s the catch) a cool $1500. Not unconvinced but lacking the cash, Bielanski declined, deciding to coexist with their alleged curse instead. I could take a cue from them.
Even if the psychic was right about that dark energy, you wouldn’t guess it from PONY’s sugar-rush sound. On their first two albums, they cranked out fizzy songs flavored by the crunch of pop-punk or a dreamy swirl of ’80s-indebted synths. Clearly Cursed moves into even poppier terrain, sparkle-soaked as Charly Bliss’ latest or an offering at the altar of Josie and the Pussycats. You know how a pink candy might taste like bubblegum, or watermelon, or strawberry, or peppermint? This is the experience of listening to Clearly Cursed. The overall palette that Bielanski deploys—alongside PONY founding member and guitarist Matty Morand, plus recent touring members Christian Beale (bass) and Joey Ginaldi (drums)—is undeniably sweet, and its 10 tracks boast a very stable formula: fuzzy guitars, bright synths, bubbly melodies. But there’s enough variety—a cheeky spoken-word bridge on “Hot and Mean”; guitar fuzz on of “Every Little Crumb”; sweeping pop on “Brilliant Blue” that, if you squint, could be a Carly Rae Jepsen castoff—that the record doesn’t melt into a sticky, samey mass.
Bielanski has said the album represents, broadly speaking, an attempt to rid themselves of the curse, but these songs don’t dig too deep into specifics. When Bielanski drops an intriguing detail (“walk-in clinics,” “plated copper”) or conjures vivid bodily images like having “lips sealed with superglue” or needing to “scrape the soap off my teeth,” it highlights their overall tendency toward broad and indistinct lyrics. Despite the vagueness, their delivery is well-honed; Bielanski seemingly cannot write a song without a banger chorus, singing them with enough buoyancy that even the album’s darker lines—“I suck at keeping promises!” “How could you die in the middle of summer?”—feel like they’ve been blown through a bubble wand.
Beneath the shimmering surface, though, there’s an undercurrent of bitterness and self-recrimination: “Hate me for the person I’ve become,” they jeer in the chorus of “Blame Me”; “Spent three years/Thinking that you were my friend,” they admit on “Every Little Crumb.” But PONY can’t thrash—against themselves; against their enemies—without simultaneously lifting the mood, like dropping confetti into a mosh pit. That dark spirit never stood a chance.
