Steve Benjamins’ vein of downtempo indie-pop is lush and immediately pleasant, his sonorous voice – described by Indie Shuffle as “a little bit like Justin Vernon and Michael Stipe” – shifting between anthemic exhilaration and downtempo contemplation over an assortment of key and synth-driven pop melodies. His recently released track “We Used to Live” provides several pleasant structural shifts, my favorite in particular being the shift to serenely anthemic pop around 02:13, preceded by an infectious synth arpeggio-led bridge. It’s a fine track that treads nicely between radio-friendly predictability and more unpredictable structural innovation. The track is off Sightlines, Benjamins’ third EP in just over two years. You can download the Toronto-based artist’s new EP for free on his website.
