Though he’s retired the wrinkled latex skin he used to wear onstage and abandoned the failed lounge singer persona of his 2016 debut, Jumping the Shark, Alex Cameron hasn’t lost his mysterious sleaze. Joined as always by his trusty business partner/alto saxophonist Roy Molloy, last year the Australian crooner dropped his sophomore album Forced Witness with the help of an all-star cast of backing musicians, including Angel Olsen and Killers frontman Brandon Flowers (who Cameron says is “like a mentor”).
Across 10 tracks that play like greasy little vignettes seen through motel room peepholes, Cameron sings from the perspectives of different men in crisis. Inspired by writers like George Saunders and Flannery O’Connor, his characters are typically drunk, drugged, or otherwise unreliable, whether they’re on the lam, prowling online, or harassing women at the club. Throughout Forced Witness, Cameron’s soaring, bongo-accented synth-pop is fueled by the adrenaline of someone with nothing left to lose, and his lyrics illustrate just how dangerous hopelessness can be when it’s steeped in toxic masculinity.