Andy Shauf’s The Party is one of the most criminally underrated albums of 2016. Truly beautiful in its production alone, The Party focuses on orchestral arrangements that vary between grandiose and understated, while its upfront vocal crispness gives Shauf a quiet confidence. The Party serves as the ultimate outsider’s guidebook. It focuses on an array of situations you never want to find yourself in: being the first person to arrive to a party while visibly annoying the host, counting on someone to stick with you throughout the night and having them ditch, and pining over painfully unrequited love. His second single, “Quite Like You” focuses on overstepping the boundaries between friends and lovers, and asks the listener to choose between allegiances with friends or with potential romantic conquests. Andy Shauf’s 2015 debut, The Bearer of Bad News, announced the arrival of a new talent possessing more than a passing fancy for the darkened pop chime of Elliott Smith and Paul Simon. But on the Saskatchewan-based musician’s 2016 ANTI–Records debut The Party, his subtle and gorgeous tunes capture the characters, ebbs, and ending of a run-of-the-mill suburban fete with all the mature songwriting sensibility
The final track, “Martha Sways,” is a simple tune accompanied by hushed vocals, heart wrenching orchestral lines and lightly plucked guitar. It asks the listener to confront the ghosts of his or her own past within the prism of new love. Ultimately, if you ever want to get misty about the past, feel your feelings, and have a good cry: this is the record for you
The Fat Angel Sings 