Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Kevin Hartford |
Malachai’s Ugly Side of Love is a throwback, in terms of both content and production. The album sounds as though it was recorded in analog and then piped through a single speaker, while the songs themselves appear to have been assembled piecemeal from a cardboard box full of ’70s vinyl.
Malachai is a duo from Bristol, England, birthplace of trip-hop artists like Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead. (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow appears on Love as both producer and co-writer). Trip-hop’s genre-mashing approach to music is evident on each of Love’s 13 tracks, though the genres themselves are hard to pin down: ‘Fading World’ undercuts its acoustic strumming and layered vocals with the occasional scratch from a record player needle; ‘Warriors’ puts reggae melodies over fuzzy guitars while its lyrics quote a particularly memorable line from 1979 cult film The Warriors.
For the most part, the mash-up works. ‘Shitkicker,’ ‘Snake Charmer,’ and ‘Fading World’ are good examples of disparate elements coming together to make an excellent song. ‘Moonsurfin” on the other hand, with its audience whistles and its “surf is up” chorus, is almost embarrassingly bad, and the overwrought snarling on ‘Blackbird’ sounds more like a parody of ’60s and ’70s rock than a genuine homage.
As a throwback to an earlier era, Love succeeds, but the album is too hit-and-miss to exist as anything else. It’s not unworthy of a listen, but it would be nice to see what Malachai could do with a bigger budget and a stronger guiding hand.
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