Kevin Bronson on January 8th, 2016

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Maybe if we all buy Justus Proffit’s debut EP, he’ll feel better. Some of the noisy, effects-drenched miserablist anthems on “Magic” make you wonder how he screwed up the courage to get out of bed, let alone stitch together six dissonant but somehow beautiful tomes to alienation. In “Stay,” he mopes “I had plans that I would be the best / impress the rest / Mother told me that I had a gift / would bring success/ I sit and drink and smoke and waste my time / ruin anything / I fucked the best years of my life.” Mom might be convinced there’s something worthwhile here, though, or that Proffit’s best days might yet be ahead. It’s not hard to sort through the grunge and find the songwriter’s pop sensibility. And that’s not a bummer at all. “Magic,” a self-released affair, came out Christmas week.

||| Stream: “Saturday”