Fate & Alcohol

This is, in a way, an audacious way to end a career. A Canadian duo whose stock-in-trade has always been outsize, unapologetically earnest anthems optimized for rooms bigger than they would ever play, or maybe than had ever been built, are signing off with a batch that may never be performed live anywhere. When Brian King and David Prowse announced their fourth and final studio album, they also insisted it would have no accompanying tour, owing in no small part to King’s newfound sobriety and reluctance to risk that in environments that could be conducive to past bad habits and the kind of cathartic revelry that Japandroids proudly represent. *Fate & Alcohol*, as the title suggests, renegotiates the codependent relationship between celebration and rock, while also serving as material evidence of its possibilities. Yes, there’s a formula to King and Prowse’s songs—chiming guitar chords, then the drums kick in, then the guitars ramp up even more, then some gang vocals, then repeat—and that’s because it works. These were written between 2017 and 2020 and feel like not just a farewell to Japandroids, but to doing the kinds of things Japandroids songs are about: drinking, hooking up on a mattress on a floor, regretting one or both of those things, being able to use youth as an excuse and as permission. There are 10 of them in 36 minutes, running the gamut from ones that make you want to raise a fist through your sunroof to ones that make you want to raise both fists through your sunroof. “Alice” counts among the latter, featuring a booze-prose all-timer (“I’m an expert in drinkable art”) and the swaggering “Chicago” couldn’t be making more of a play for *The Bear*’s music supervisors if it came with a side of giardiniera. You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.