The title of Verzache’s second full-length album doubles as a disclaimer: My Head Is a Moshpit is a warning to anyone who discovered the Toronto bedroom-pop auteur (né Zach Farache) through his 2018 mumble-funk hit “Needs” that they’re in for a far more turbulent ride this time. “I want to take you on a little bit of a road trip—an emotional road trip,” the singer/producer tells Apple Music. “My Head Is a Moshpit symbolizes who I really am, and what I've gone through over the past few years, from relationships to mental health shit. It describes how I feel in my head with all these things I'm struggling with and not being able to hold it in place. It's like all your thoughts are just attacking each other.”
Drawing from a wider palette of influences that blends the dreamy art-folk of Bon Iver, the post-dubstep soul of James Blake, and “shoegaze-rock shit” into his established mosaic of chill rap beats, the 19 tracks on My Head Is a Moshpit are a testament to Verzache’s growing confidence as a songwriter and arranger. Where snappy singles like “All I Need” and “Look Away” showcase a newfound facility for the sort of taut, propulsive indie pop that Phoenix patented in the late 2000s, “Figure It Out” pries open a portal into Verzache’s mad-scientist methods: What begins as a gentle Coldplay-esque piano ballad suddenly flips into a tropical-trap jam without messing with the vibe.
“That's my favorite part—the meshing of shit,” Verzache says. “Whatever music I'm obsessed with at the time, I just want to put them all together. It's like going to the soda dispenser and pouring all the flavors in one cup, and finding the best ones—like, 'Oh, this combo with the Sprite and the OJ is kind of sick!' But I think it also shows growth, to be honest—it shows that I'm not trying to chase the easy way out, you know?”
To emphasize that point, the personal journey that Verzache undergoes on My Head Is a Moshpit doesn’t lead to a tidy resolution. If anything, the album’s closing stretch—marked by the distressed dream pop of “These Walls” and the eerily desolate folk-rap rumination “Last Year”—features Verzache’s most wounded and desperate performances to date. For the all introspection and self-care he’s undertaken over the course of this record, the mosh pit in his head is still very much raging. But while his album may lack a typical happy ending, Verzache is learning to embrace—in the words of Kurt Cobain—the comfort in being sad. “At the end, it’s like, ‘Yo, even though I’ve learned a lot here, I’m still fucked,’” Verzache says. “Because I’m a human being—I'm still figuring my shit out just like everyone else.”
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