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Mar 11, 2013Apart from the increased cohesion, the quality of the songwriting is far higher, reminding us of the astonishing promise and tossed-off ease of Banhart's early material, and suggesting that his detours into less exciting sounds were just part of a journey that might be much longer and more rewarding than expected.
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Mar 12, 2013Mala is Banhart's best record in nearly a decade--largely because it's his loosest and funniest.
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UncutMar 7, 2013A thrillingly inventive blend of alt.rock, fingerpicking folk, Latin flavours and--new this--electronic pop. [Apr 2013, p.67]
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MojoMar 7, 2013[The songs] are among the most immediate he's recorded. [Apr 2013, p.88]
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Q MagazineMar 11, 2013This is a beautiful album that counterpoints Banhart's boundless and surreal imagination against a newly-discovered depth and sincerity. [Apr 2013, p.105]
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Mar 12, 2013Mala is smoother in its amalgamation, drifty melodies and his classic mumble recorded with gorgeously low-fi-sounding muffle.
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Mar 11, 2013While the highs aren’t quite as high and the lows are quite a bit lower than they have been previously in his career, Mala might just be the grown-up album Devendra Banhart has been waiting a decade to make.
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Mar 13, 2013He's a singularly idiosyncratic and brilliant songwriter, one hitting an arresting stride on this uniformly superb album.
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Mar 14, 2013If he opted to waft round the world for the next three years only to return with another quiet little triumph like this, it would be perfectly acceptable.
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Mar 12, 2013Like Banhart’s other albums, Mala loses focus.... Still, there’s plenty of laid-back cool in Mala’s grooves, and even a bit of ’70s Eurodisco flash at one point.
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Mar 13, 2013Tidy and concise, clocking in at 43 minutes, it favors the diminutive gesture to the cloying, hammy affectation that derailed so much of his prior discography.
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Mar 12, 2013Like most Banhart albums, Mala is often easier to admire fondly than truly love, particularly when the maestro leans closest to his freak-folk roots.
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Mar 14, 2013Mala may not stand as the zenith of the man’s catalogue, but it’s a highlight worth exploring and a dreamy journey for the taking.
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Mar 11, 2013Mala attests to a discipline that was absent in Banhart's recent, loopier ventures, proving that his eccentric songwriting works best when harnessed in service of good storytelling.
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Apr 9, 2013The widening of Banhart’s previously contained and signature sound continues to pay off here, the funky and inviting rubber basslines that are scattered throughout the album particularly memorable.
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MagnetApr 16, 2013Mala is his finest attempt at not killing momentum by diving down a rabbit hole. [No. 97, p.52]
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Mar 11, 2013For all its detours, this is a record intoxicated by its own grooves--silken, sexy, a little aimless, and a lot of fun.
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Jun 4, 2013This is Banhart’s best work because it functions as a unit.
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Mar 12, 2013While Mala retains an inquisitive aural attitude--there in its markedly electronic palette, and its squirly, scuffly sound--there’s also limberness to this set of songs, a feeling of them all moving happily together.
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Mar 11, 2013[2009’s What Will We Be's] malady of stylistic disparity has been curbed to the point of what feels like a cohesive body of work.
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Mar 19, 2013On Mala he certainly could have done himself some favours by trimming away some lesser moments (particularly the pointless minute long “Mala” or “A Gain”) but there’s certainly a sense that’s he gradually becoming more efficient with his song writing.
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Mar 12, 2013The indie folk darling's brand of Latin- and electronic-tinged pop yields a broad range of musical and sonic textures here.
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Mar 11, 2013If Mala wasn't conceived as Devendra Banhart's Europhile album, it's doing a damn fine impression of one.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 15 out of 20
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Mixed: 5 out of 20
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Negative: 0 out of 20
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Mar 20, 2013
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Mar 15, 2013
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Jun 13, 2015