Articulate Excuses

Throughout his career, LA-via-Toronto singer-songwriter JP Saxe has struck a delicate balance between soul-baring sensitivity and self-lacerating humor. But he doesn’t so much juxtapose gravity and levity as fuse them to reflect the perpetually unsettled sensation of being alive and extremely online in the 2020s, where the churn of relentless doomscrolling leaves you unsure of whether to laugh or weep. *Articulate Excuses* is the first of two mini albums Saxe is unveiling over the course of 2025, after deciding to divide his large stockpile of songs into separate works organized by theme. And judging by this first installment, he’s been spending a lot of time reflecting on his worst behaviors and the cultural influences that encourage them. The opening piano hymn “SMARTPHONE MAKE ME DUMB” is a Sunday-morning plea for salvation from the myriad vices—social-media addiction, drinking, meaningless sex—that force him to admit, “My subconscious is a fucking monster.” But *Articulate Excuses* isn’t all sad-sack introspection: Saxe may inhabit the role of a manipulative ex-boyfriend on “LET A GINGER MAKE YOU CRY,” but the song’s playful, ping-ponging R&B beat lends his villainous portrayal a cartoonish quality. And with “SOFT ASS BITCH,” Saxe interrogates the inability of men to express their true feelings before scaling a Coldplay-sized emotional peak that could make any grown man cry.