There's a kind of alchemy to the way Edmonton indie-pop songwriter St.Arnaud captures life's messier feelings and still makes them sound like something you'd want to sing along to with your windows down. His latest single, "Pretend Like You Do," accomplishes just that, embodying the pain of unrequited love and encasing it in bittersweet, melodious sincerity.
"Pretend Like You Do" seems deceptively light, even playful, but behind the bright indie-pop is a song enriched with wounded pride, the bitter, sweet nectar of that stubborn tenderness that remains after a relationship has run its course. It's the confrontations with a person who used to be your everything, but it's those you have to fake a smile through while your heart still flinches.
What really lands about the track is its humanity. It's not white and black he's working with, but a strange, lush technicolor, the ache of heartbreak, the humor we find in our own self-pity, the unspoken race to see who's over it first. The result is a song that's like staring at your reflection in a store window after you bump into an old flame, a little distorted, a little bruised, but still undeniably yourself.
But fans who follow St. Arnaud across Spotify, YouTube, and on tours that have brought him all over Canada, the United States, and Europe know he's good with that line. His music is tender without turning syrupy, wry without sounding dismissive. That balance is sharpened to a point here, with the track's finger leaning forward on both the ridiculous buttons of heartbreak, never afraid to let those two things exist at once.