Changes - EP

After an injury interrupted his hockey dreams, British Columbia-based Jojo Mason turned to country pop and began honing his singing and songwriting chops. His EP Changes, the follow-up to 2017’s Both Sides of the Bar and 2019’s Chapter Two, shows how comfortable he’s gotten applying his husky timbre to emotionally open material. “Chemical,” written with Mitchell Tenpenny, Lindsay Rimes, and ERNEST, is a brisk declaration of infatuation with rock-guitar crunch and half-buried banjo textures. During “Doin’ It Right,” Mason suavely offers more attentive treatment than a neglectful boyfriend; during “Love and War,” he highlights the drama of a rift in a couple’s communication; and during “I Shoulda Lied,” he second-guesses the risk he’s taken being fully vulnerable with a lover.