It's easy to see why Men I Trust have been such a success in today's algorithm-driven music economy. Even without a label behind them, their smooth, soft-focus dream pop is perfect "vibe" music — equally suited for background listening and having "main character" moments. Men I Trust are quite literally the face of Spotify's Discovery Mode (where the streamer feeds the music to more listeners in exchange for a chunk of the already-low royalties).
It seems pejorative to associate Men I Trust with this market of TikTok soundbites and lo-fi beats to study/relax to — but, like fellow vibe curators Mac DeMarco, Beach House and Tame Impala, Men I Trust elevate this cynical form to fine art, carving gems of dream pop with laser precision, rewarding careful focus every bit as much as passive listening.
They've been perfecting their sound for more than a decade without making their Grand Statement. Their first two albums pre-dated the addition of vocalist Emmanuelle Proulx and are pretty much a different band, while 2019's 24-song opus Oncle Jazz threw perfect songs in a blender with ironic throwaways in a tracklist that was at least twice as long as it needed to be, and 2021's Untourable Album beautifully refined their concentration onto the bleary, insular side of their wobbly soundscapes.
The stage was set for MIT to deliver their masterpiece, but they zig-zagged with this March's Equus Asinus — a predominantly acoustic, almost-kinda-folksy album that tones down MIT's signature haziness without really replacing it with anything else. It washes over the listener without ever sinking in, and while it's exceedingly pleasant, it doesn't meet the band's usual standard of elevated playlist material.
But if Equus Asinus was the donkey, Equus Caballus is the horse — galloping and majestic, its delicacy matched by its power. The album includes the band's stand-out 2023 single "Billie Toppy," and that surging banger provides the sonic foundation for the album's 14 tracks, an undercurrent of wonkiness disguised by the beauty of '80s synth sparkle and Proulx's feather-soft coos, which cryptically allude to love and longing, giving enough lyrical information to heighten the mood without ever stealing the focus. The band are fully playing to their strengths — the guitars thrown subtly askew with pitch modulation, the electronics evoking the rosy nostalgia of a half-remembered John Hughes movie.
Opener "To Ease You" established the vibe within seconds, a chugging new wave groove turned sparkling by a luminous keyboard hook, conveying the heart-exploding romance of golden-era M83. Every detail is honed for maximum pleasure — the way the chord changes push the beat, the synth that mirrors the arpeggiating guitar, the synth filters that open up leading into the chorus.
This sets a standard where every second of these 42 minutes counts — whether its the snappy, high-BPM, "Billie Toppy"-styled bops like "Where I Sit" and "Worn Down," or the heavy-lidded comedowns: "Another Stone," with its filtered acoustic riffs à la Talkie Walkie or The Campfire Headphase, and "The Better Half," where slinky palm-muted riffs give way to queasy bass blasts and a final passage of jazzy music school arpeggios.
Equus Caballus distills decades of pop and electronic music into an album that sounds perfectly of its moment, and yet also an escape from it. Like Link cantering through the meadows of Breath of the Wild, Men I Trust occupy a fantastical world of vivid colours, tender yearning and larger-than-life beauty; Equus Caballus is the steed to take you through that impossibly idyllic landscape.