Take Care

Take Care’s sensitive slowcore puts feelings first. The project is one of many helmed by prolific Irish musician Liam McCay (born in the mid-2000s), primarily known as sign crushes motorist. Agony (2022), his first record as Take Care, is a collection of glacially paced and sparse songs—often just voice, guitar and drums—that dive headfirst into the crushing loneliness of teenage heartbreak. He followed it up the same year with Reject, continuing to explore themes of regret, self-doubt and loss in impassioned acoustic epics (“You’re Perfect”) and hypnotic lo-fi (“This Feeling Will Pass”). McCay combines the intimacy of his bedroom production with an often mumbled and obscured singing style, simultaneously inviting listeners in and keeping them at arm’s length. The allegedly final Take Care album, 2023’s Alive, is notably cheerier and more fleshed out than its predecessors, finding McCay infusing songs like the dreamy “I’m Glad I’m Alive” with an air of sweetness, hinting that the feelings did, eventually, pass.