Gord, the new EP from Scarborough singer-songwriter Alex McCulloch, is not optimized for Spotify’s “Sad Indie Girl Crying” playlist or your roommate’s vinyl collection of things they don’t actually listen to. It doesn’t care about algorithmic viability. It’s not chasing sync deals or viral moments. It’s just… here. Quiet. Unassuming. And devastating.
This record didn’t just hit me; it snuck up on me. I went in expecting soft singer-songwriter fare, maybe a few poetic musings about heartbreak and the occasional metaphor involving cigarettes or kitchen floors. What I got was a six-track gut-punch disguised as a folk EP.
McCulloch’s from Scarborough, and it shows in the best way. Her voice sounds like it grew up riding the TTC too late and watching the city fall apart through a smeared window. Her debut, Bourbon and Love Songs was already great, but Gord is something else. It’s quieter. Smarter. Sadder. It feels like someone whispering the truth to you in a room full of people pretending to be fine.
Each track—Gregory, Gord, Dave, Jim, Matthew, and Madeline—is named after a real person, but this isn’t some trauma-bait concept album. McCulloch writes them as they are: messy, human, and worth knowing. These aren’t love songs; they’re about the kind of bonds that outlast grief, silence, and screwups.
Gregory opens like a secret and ends like a eulogy. Gord is whisper-quiet but emotionally crushing. Jim just quietly wrecks you. Matthew hums with unresolved tension. Dave brings warmth, and Madeline closes things out in a kind of ghostly wonder. All of them feel like a vignette into a friendship, captured vividly.
Now, the production done by Dave Ritter and John Dinsmore isn’t flashy, which is great, because flashy would’ve ruined this. Everything sounds like it was recorded two feet away from your face. The guitars are warm. The Wurlitzer hums like an old friend. And McCulloch’s voice? It doesn’t just sing. It testifies.
Alex McCulloch calls herself a “confessional liar,” which might sound like the name of a particularly exhausting podcast, but in this context it rules. Think Springsteen, but if he was Canadian and probably better at texting back. These songs aren’t autobiographical in the literal sense, but they’re emotionally true, which is more important and far rarer.
Gord isn’t a big record. It doesn’t pretend to be. It’s small, deliberate, personal. It won’t change the world, but it might change the way you think about your own. And in a world where everyone’s screaming for your attention, Gord by Alex McCulloch feels like a miracle.
So no, this record won’t go viral. But you might. Quietly. After listening to it too many times in a row and realizing you’ve been crying for twenty minutes. And honestly? That’s enough.
The album will be called “Alex McCulloch” on streaming platforms when it drops
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for publications in the US and former lead writer of Atop The Treehouse. Reviews music, film and TV shows for media aggregators.
