“Canada's Next Top Fat Otter”

Devours, Sports Car Era

If Devours’ 2023 album Homecoming Queen was about returning to the past to reconcile with it, their latest, Sports Car Era, is about flooring the gas pedal into the future. It’s unabashedly queer, defiantly self-assured, and refuses to let anxiety or uncertainty take the wheel. Through his Devours “gaylien” superhero persona, musician/producer Jeff Cancade continues to explore the complexities of queer identity. But this time, he’s doing it with sharper teeth and a louder synth line.

You won’t hear Sports Car Era blaring from a Shopper’s Drug Mart-sponsored Pride float or at a white party—but you should. It’s not sanitized for mass appeal, and that’s precisely the point. On the cusp of turning 40 after 10 years of toiling to build a respectable and devoted fan base, Devours find themselves at a crossroads. While Cancade calls it an album about male mid-life crises, Sports Car Era is also a pugnacious punch in the face to anyone who thinks that artistry and relevance come with an expiration date. In a statement to Exclaim! Cancade described the album as bieng “about self-empowerment in adulthood… forging my own path without music industry support, and recognizing that I might not have even reached my prime yet.”

Homecoming Queen was introspective and sometimes melancholic, and while there are still wistful moments, like the poignant and devastatingly beautiful single “Loudmouth,” much of Sports Car Era is bolder and more confrontational. There’s a confidence to the music that feels earned and unapologetic. From the frenetic opener “Bodyguard,” which blasts 8-bit bullets through your speakers, to the warped brilliance of “Armageddon Mood Ring,” which folds in on itself like an origami unicorn made from RuPaul’s discarded wig receipts, Devours refuses to settle into predictable patterns. Besides the aforementioned “Loudmouth,” a personal favourite is “Canada’s Next Top Fat Otter,” a title that’s as cheeky as it is poignant, masking heartbreak in layers of self-aware camp.

Sports Car Era’s sonic palette (retro synths, glitchy textures, and shimmering beats) feels like a bridge between Devours’ past and future, their grief and joy. It’s a sound that’s familiar to fans of their last four albums, but is also forward-sounding in how it puts a pin in Devours' story arc so far. What emerges from Sports Car Era is not just a portrait of a queer artist in midlife, but a roadmap for how to keep creating, feeling, and evolving when the world tells you you’re washed up and done. Devours isn’t slowing—they’re shifting into something more honest, more expansive, and more themselves.

Happy Pride, bitches.

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