How TOPS Went Pro Mode

“The four years before this, we were kind of doing fuck all,” TOPS guitarist David Carriere quips while sweeping up the remnants of a potted plant he’s just knocked over. (Don’t worry, it is salvageable.) He’s referring to the stretch of time that’s passed since the release of TOPS’ last record, I Feel Alive, which came out in early 2020. Reluctant to make a “pandemic record,” they’ve waited five years to emerge again, though each member has remained booked and busy since then. Carriere himself helped keyboardist Marta Cikojevic produce her solo debut Marci; drummer Riley Fleck lent his talents as a part of multiple touring bands; singer Jane Penny released a solo EP of her own in 2024 It wasn’t until the winter of last year that TOPS felt ready to come back into the studio together again. This reunion, Penny says, was inevitable. “Whenever we did other solo projects or anything, it was never because we didn’t think that TOPS was gonna continue. It was always on the horizon for us to do another record.” Now, the group has Bury the Key to offer.

Bury the Key has been over a year in the making, but I catch Penny in a different kind of aftermath: a lengthy identification process with the IRS. “It might not sound like a barrel of laughs, but it’s been quite a headache,” she says. I laugh in response, half-distracted by Carriere, who is still attempting to clean up the plant he knocked down behind her. This chaotic energy is a reflection of a long history between the two. They’ve known each other since they were kids, and despite their musical success, they still don’t take themselves too seriously.

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That unpretentious, carefree mentality extends into their approach to TOPS, especially on Bury the Key. Made up of shelved projects from the band’s past and new music alike, the foursome was scattered across the globe when the idea for a new album began materializing. Each member crafted demos on their own, before later deciding to meet up in Montreal to put the pieces together. While there, TOPS took to the streets on bicycles to get to their recording studio (which was housed on a road that translates to “road to ruin” in English) despite it being the middle of a Canadian winter. “Sometimes we’d see people laughing at us and pointing,” Penny remembers. “I think people were like, ‘Is that all of TOPS on city bikes?’” While she toyed with the idea of naming the album “road to ruin” in homage to the street they made it on (“I thought it might be a bad album name because maybe it’s not a good omen or something”), the band went with Bury the Key instead—a title, ironically enough, inspired by the concept of superstition.

Though I Feel Alive was shaped by sunny synthesizers and a driving, indie-rock disposition, the band wanted to do something different this time. They thought stepping into a new sound by “channeling the world” around them would be the best way to do just that. “When we made the record, I felt this general feeling of uncertainty in the world and a sense of increased radicalization,” Penny says. “Also, my world had just fallen down around me. I found myself back in Montreal after living in Berlin for a few years and starting over in a lot of ways.” In turn, feelings of seclusion and change inspired the major themes of the record, from the shimmery words of infatuation in “Stars Come After You” to a groovy celebration of willpower in “Outstanding in the Rain.” The sentiment is clear on the song “Chlorine,” too, as Penny dives into the theme of toxic love. “[Cikojevic] and I wrote the verse for this song, and it just felt moody right away,” Carriere elaborates. “It didn’t feel that hard to write as a band. I feel like Jane did all the heavy lifting on the song.”

For Penny, “Chlorine” goes back to the concepts of isolation and destructive habits. “This song made me think about Edmonton in Alberta where I grew up,” she admits. “Edmonton was my home, and I used to swim a lot. To this day I find that being underwater creates this meditative subconscious space.” Then, she began thinking about chlorine (the chemical) and spending nights in bars. “I feel like our friendships or connections are made through escapist behavior, and there’s a funny combination between deep friendship and not necessarily doing the healthiest things,” Penny continues. “In pools and bars, there’s connection, but there’s also poison.” To bolster the intensity of Bury the Key’s, the band worked hard to morph their dappled sound into something darker. From punk rock to dark-toned psychedelia, the new sounds are an intentional product of TOPS’ voracious desire to try new things. “A lot of the songs were made using minor modes or keys,” Carriere says. “We made an effort to just be a bit looser with or less precious about the way it all sounds.” He and his bandmates wanted to “rock harder” this time around.

While the sounds of the songs themselves are different, TOPS also experimented with their writing practices. Historically, they’ve started new tracks by recording demos on their own, and the sketches would later get fleshed out by the whole band. This time around, “Annihilation” started with a drum beat. “We were like, ‘Riley, why don’t you write something and let’s start with that as a base?’” Penny says. “When you have the drums component first like that, you can almost treat it the way a producer would sample drums. It completely changes the approach.” “Falling on my Sword,” on the other hand, began with a simple request from Carriere: “David was like, ‘We’re gonna write a hardcore song,’ but I didn’t even really know what that meant,” Penny recalls.

Despite not having a clear idea of what the “hardcore song” Carriere wanted was supposed to look like, the band knew that trying would be enough, as they so often traffic in learning new styles. “Falling on my Sword,” which features a satisfying interplay of searing guitars and driving drums, is them playing to their curious strenghts. “Even when we first started the band, I feel like a huge influence for me was Steely Dan, but I couldn’t have been less skillful at keyboard or singing,” Penny explains. “I just started doing both of those things. So I feel like there’s an element of like doing a bad impersonation that makes a good band. If you’re trying to do something and you’re too good at copying it, it’s immediately uninteresting because people can clock it. But if you’re bad at copying it, then you might end up somewhere new. Be worse than your references. That’s the key.”

Not all those references have to be sonic, either. For example, Penny found inspiration for the lyrics to “I See U 2” in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up and a scene from John Schlesinger 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, explaining that, when she writes songs, it’s not based on an immediately specific feeling. “I’ll have a lot of cinematic imagery in my head,” she continues. “It’s sort of like shadows and mirrors. For ‘I See U 2,’ I heard the instrumental and saw a lot of scenes in my head from [Midnight Cowboy], when Dustin Hoffman is at a party and he’s all confused. I was thinking about all sorts of different parties where there’s different rooms and so many things happening and wanted to capture that intrigue and playfulness.”

The vibrant electronica of “Annihilation” was inspired by the works of composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away while TOPS was actively making the song. “We wanted to use it to wink to Yellow Magic Orchestra,” Penny says. “I’m not the kind of person that has that ‘good old days’ mentality. I generally don’t prescribe to that, but there were so many of these cultural greats over the 20th century, and I feel like it’s so hard for any artist to get any kind of support now unless they’re hugely mainstream.” Penny watched her heroes “pass over to the other side” and wondered if, even now, there’s enough space for a great artist like Sakamoto to exist. “Annihilation” similarly pulled from the life of the late Sinéad O’Connor. “I was thinking about how difficult it is to be an influential artist like she was and just the weight of that, and I feel like ‘Annihilation’ is about resilience and finding joy in difficult moments,” Penny elaborates. While the song was intended to be an homage to O’Connor, its themes of perseverance ended up revealing a serendipitous link to TOPS as well. Penny remembers it being a historically cold night when they made “Annihilation.” “My pipes froze. Still, we stayed up really late working into the night. Sometimes, when you catch a break with a song, you just have to go really hard on it.”

Bury the Key sings of renewal and hunger, making it a worthy comeback from TOPS, who’ve made great, left-of-center pop, disco, and post-punk music since unleashing Tender Opposites onto the world 13 years ago. It helps that the members’ respective solo endeavors gave them fresh, much-needed perspectives. After all, Cikojevic did make one of the better pop debuts of this decade so far, and Surfacing‘s chameleonic, electronic strata undoubtedly made Penny a better curator. “Everybody has learned new things about making music over the past few years. During COVID, I recorded so much music and I somehow got better,” Carriere says. “Maybe it’s because I wasn’t just playing the same song every day at a concert.” Penny agrees with her bandmate, saying she “definitely felt like we were all coming to the project in a way of feeling more like pro musicians.”

Penny continues, “I definitely felt like I had more confidence in my decisions. Also, David got like a real studio set up in Montreal here. Before it’s always been some variation on a bedroom or apartment studio, so I feel like we just definitely felt a little bit more pro mode about things.”

Bury the Key comes with a lot of change, but the band’s mindset toward music has remained the same from day one. “David has a mentality of showing up every day for music making and just doing that. I think that’s ultimately a really important approach,” Penny explains. “There are these songwriting situations where people will try to crank out a song in a day, and that’s never been our mentality. I think it’s best if you work as hard as possible, but don’t force anything to come to a conclusion, it has the best results. It’s kind of the most frustrating and hardest method, but I think it’s the only way to have consistently authentic songwriting. People tend to be really results focused and I think that doesn’t work in music. Something gets lost. If you’re just trying to get to an end, you’re skipping everything that’s gonna make the end good.”

To TOPS, their songs have always come from a place of loving music, doing the work, and relinquishing control in the name of the collective’s success. “David always says the mix is never done and it’s never good enough, but you just accept it,” Penny says. Carriere nods beside her, before speaking up: “And then you put it out and it’s not yours anymore.” But then you get to make a new song, Penny argues. “That’s the main thing that we really focus on: Every time you finish a song, you get this new state of the very beginning of a song, which is so exciting and fun. I feel like starting a song is always when the creative spark is the brightest.”

How TOPS Went Pro Mode

David Carriere and Jane Penny spoke with Paste about how solo projects evolved the band, their shared admiration for Sinead O’Connor, and the making of their first album since 2020, Bury the Key.