Reviews

Sitting comfortably between pop, electro, and hip-hop, Australia’s Mallrat delivers a whimsical, ephemeral record. Light hit my face like a straight right by the kickboxing and songwriting Grace Shaw, aka Mallrat, punches through walled genre gardens and hits the neural spot between DIY vibe and broader appeal.

In ten full-fledged tracks (and two interludes), Mallrat conveys a kaleidoscopic display remaining mostly in a subdued, bedroom-styled production, ever so often floating away into a dream state. The light takes on centre stage as more than a physical phenomenon but as a protagonist, an embodiment of magical moments in a very ordinary life. «There’s something holy about those moments, you know, like the angelic choir in cartoons or whatever,» Mallrat states. «It’s the unexpectedness of it, the suddenness.»

We explore electronic escalation as the extreme autotune in Ray of Light, Memphis hip-hop influences most evident in Hocus Pocus and Pavement, and even roam in rock and folk territory with The Worst Thing I Would Ever Do and Horses.

Slow Burning

What sounds like an utterly repelling journey of stylistic breaks actually works with a refined tracklist. The album slowly builds momentum and remains relaxed at first by indulging in balladesque tracks.

Unfortunately, two of those, Something for Somebody and Defibrillator, are the weakest entries of this record. Defibrillator falls behind with its slowly waning pop ballad outfit. Too much cheese, too generic despite the perfectly placed defibrillator samples.

However, in between sits—thankfully—one of the strongest: Virtue is a minimalistic work of haunting beauty.

Dance Phase

With the interlude, The Light Streams In And Hits My Face, Mallrats transitions into the danceable phase. Hocus Pocus and Hideaway push the gas.

Especially Hideaway is another highlight with its vibrant and flickering garage groove juxtaposed by Mallrat’s dreamy and flowing vocals.

Turning the electronic escalation to eleven, Love Songs / Heart Strings and Ray of Light are the most extreme frays of Mallrat’s sonic universe—shooting far off from suburban reality into the galaxy.

Grounding

After this extraterrestrial experience, we are grounded again, earthbound, with the surprisingly rocky anthem, The Worst Thing I Would Ever Do. The transition to this new sound is a tad disruptive, but I can accept it with such a convincing track. And with Horses, we’re strolling down a folky road.

With Light hit my face like a straight right, Mallrat delivers a dense and more concise artistic vision—a development from the ideas outlined in her 2022 debut Butterfly Blue.

Moreover, the record perfectly captures the ongoing deconstruction of genres—or, if you wanna see it the other way around, pop’s embrace of a multitude of sonic signatures.

You can hear traces of Lana Del Rey’s stylised sound, SOPHIE-shaped hyperpop outlines, Memphis-based flavours like Three 6 Mafia, and Fleet Foxes’ earthy folk—all rounded up by Mallrat and moulded into a record that, against all odds, has its own and consistent feel.

If pop music sounds like this, it’s worth your consideration.

Mallrat – Light hit my face like a straight right

Release: 14/02/2025

1. My Darling, My Angel
2. Pavement
3. Something for Somebody
4. Virtue
5. Defibrillator
6. The Light Streams in and Hits My Face
7. Hocus Pocus
8. Hideaway
9. Love Songs / Heart Strings
10. Ray of Light
11. The Worst Thing I Would Ever Do
12. Horses

You know this slight tiredness, this exhausting saturation after a big dinner? When you just ate a bit too much and hope that the subsequent espresso will ease the burden?

That’s precisely the feeling I’m left with by GINA ÉTÉ’s new album, Prosopagnosia‌. Granted, this metaphor could be perceived as rather negative. But it’s more a fair warning: the album is heavy and not easily digested.

First, I have to get it out of the way: GINA ÉTÉ has teased this album with the single release of Fyou:you, a pumping track with Swiss dialect lyrics. Naturally, this limits the song’s message about bodies, borders, gender, and discrimination. That’s why ÉTÉ has invited seven European musicians to create covers in multiple languages.
Despite this innovative approach, Fyou:you falls off in the grand scheme of Prosopagnosia‌. As a standalone single, the track and the idea work, but in the album’s context, the sound is too rash and cuts through an otherwise consistent album.

But this remains pretty much my only nitpick of GINA ÉTÉ’s otherwise breathtaking sophomore album, filled with filigrée and whimsical arrangements between chamber music, pop, and electronic sounds. I once wrote about GINA ÉTÉ: „This Zurich-based musician is something of a Swiss answer to Björk: influenced by many different styles, mysterious and—once you have immersed yourself in this sound universe—disarming.“ And this conclusion still rings true years later.

Often, the songs are eerily haunting, like Love To Work, an exploration of care and sex work. ÉTÉ explains in the press release: „Any work historically done by mostly women to care for others is underestimated, ill-paid, stigmatised, often done under precarious conditions. With Love To Work, I want to fight for their appreciation and for better, safer work conditions.”

Where Love To Work has its very unique, bold energy, The Bet and My Friend feature a flowing beauty, a fragile innocence in their melodies. In those more quiet moments, GINA ÉTÉ excels with impressive brilliance.

Again, I have to repeat: Prosopagnosia‌ is not an easily accessible work. It has a certain melancholy, a darker tone to it. The arrangements are complex and ever-shifting, like sonic chameleons. The themes explored aren’t a walk in the park either; they prompt us to reflect and be critical.

It took me several listening sessions, spread over a couple of weeks, to truly appreciate Prosopagnosia‌. First, my verdict would’ve been much worse. But now, the album has blossomed and grown on me. The intricate compositions, the sense that every little thing in those songs is meaningful and done with intent.

Take your time with this one.

GINA ÉTÉ – Prosopagnosia‌

Release: 07/02/2025

1. Prolog – This Mess I’m In
2. Love to Work
3. La Joie (au bout d’un moment)
4. The Bet
5. F***you:you
6. Interlude – Your Opinion
7. The Last Air
8. Blindside
9. My Friend
10. Your Opinion

Buy on Bandcamp

Reading the news leaves me depressed, angry, even furious. And this bottled-up energy needs a valve, one that Best Behavior delivers. The third album by Portuguese band Them Flying Monkeys is an unapologetic series of hammering, rampaging rock staccatos.

Despite infusing more electronic elements, Them Flying Monkey’s sound remains harsh and loud, only rarely enthralled by catchy melodies while otherwise relentlessly stomping and shouting like a child at the cashier wanting a treat.

And they certainly don‘t beat around the bush: Beautiful Mess, a track with intro quality, opens the curtain with vigour. Explosive bursts light up like fireworks. From there on out, their onslaught just never slows down anymore.

Pretty Sticks, released as a single last year, sets the tone and style of the album. It’s a chopped-up rock sound they deliver, driven by Hugo Luzio’s merciless drums and João Tomázio’s bass. Vocalist Luís Judícibus often leans more into urging shouts than melodic singing, giving the songs a punkish vibe, while Diogo Sá (guitar) and Francisco Dias Pereira (keys) join the action, laying a carpet of psychedelic sounds.

The whole album feels integrated, yet each track remains distinct. Next Emma Stone and Everybody Everything lean into a rapid punk rock à là Sum 41. The chorus of Great Song borders at hardcore. And they’re so comfortable with their sonic signature that they can even make others work their own with Jacques Dutronc’s Les Gens Sont Fous, les Temps Sont Flous.

The only breather on Best Behavior is Not Me, at least in the beginning. A reduced composition, highlighting the spoken word by Judícibus. But the initial calm doesn’t last long, as they soon escalate to a final crescendo.

Them Flying Monkeys have a hypnotic quality regardless of their noisy attire. But it isn’t just their jackhammering composition but also their lyrics. They’re devoid of any useless fat, trimmed to the bare minimum, often hard-hitting one-liners, repeated to burn it in your mind. They take this concept to the extreme in Fake It:

You gotta fake it
’til you make it
Or something worth being done

On endless repeat, as I’ve done to write this review, Best Behavior can get a bit tiring because the sound is so raw, so unyielding, and urging you can’t ignore it. You have to listen—it’s not made for background drizzle. But honestly, that’s more praise than criticism. We certainly don’t need more music that doesn’t truly grab your attention, that doesn't pull you back to the moment.

This uncompromising energy of Best Behavior is mere genius.

Them Flying Monkeys – Best Behavior

Release: 24/01/2025

1. Beautiful Mess
2. Pretty Sticks
3. Next Emma Stone
4. Great Song
5. Everybody Everything
6. Not Me
7. Les gens sont fous, les temps sont flous
8. Aim
9. Fake It
10. Wilds

Buy on Bandcamp

Hot and humid night. Glittering lights. The dance floor is clear for Valentino Vivace.

After his self-published debut, Meteoriti, in 2022, the Swiss Italo Disco upstart his sophomore album, Discoteca Vivace. The title is a promise.

Vivace’s work is short but concise: If we ignore the opening Preludio and the Interludio (prima dello slow), he leaves us with six tracks. With this runtime, we’re more in EP territory. But let’s just leave this technicality aside for now.

First, if Italo Disco isn’t your thing, you keep far away from Discoteca Vivace. All that’s waiting for you are sticky and sugary tracks that celebrate 80s nostalgia. Neon lights, Lamborghini Countach, palm-lined coastlines, tropical nights. And yeah, this sound has a feverish erotic quality.

As Valentino Vivace explains in the press release, the album’s concept is pretty simple: «The idea of the album was to represent the different moments of a club night. From the pure energy of Italo Disco to the endorphin-fueled climax of the night, and finally to the slow, dreamy tracks at six in the morning when the sun rises again.»

Deep basslines, flickering synths, catchy hooks—it’s all there. Sometimes, Vivace takes it slow, as in Ti sento or Baia Degli Angeli, his hommage to the deceased Italo Disco pioneer ‌Pino D’Angiò. But then, there are Hulahoop, Eroi, or Anima romantica, the faster-paced, vibrant bangers. They are—similar to previous tracks like Autoradio or Insieme—designed to stir euphoria and shower you with dopamine, and do so successfully.

Discoteca Vivace is a short-lasting burst. But for someone like me, who is not hugely invested in the genre, it’s actually the perfect length. The production is tight, a significant improvement from Meteoriti, and there’s a consistency in songwriting connecting the tracks to an intriguing offer, pushing the initial ideas to the next level.

Only Hype?

Maybe more of a concern than a criticism would be the overdose of retro vibes. With this album, Vivace doubles down on this exaggerated version of something perceived as vintage sound. Acts like Hurts or Crimer spring to mind, cooking with similar recipes. Initially met with frenetic hype, it‘s hard to maintain a larger audience. All hypes ultimately die down; enjoy it while it lasts.

However, Valentino Vivace’s challenge will be to evolve the sound into something more contemporary and remain fresh and surprising.

But today, that‘s still all hypothetical. Discoteca Vivace offers you all the shades of Italo Disco you could wish for—the soothing slow dance and the pumping and thumping anthems. And the sound’s hedonistic, devil-may-care attitude unifies an undeniable, sprawling coolness and a desire for escapism.

Valentino Vivace – Discoteca Vivace

Release: 24/01/2025

1. Preludio
2. RGB
3. Hulahoop
4. Baia degli Angeli
5. Interludio (prima dello show)
6. Ti sento
7. Eroi
8. Anima romantica