Mall Girl – Pure Love | Album Review

Fully emphasising and enlivening it’s respective title, the new record from Oslo’s Mall Girl is as fluid and unquantifiable as the spectrum of human emotion itself.

Riding hot on the heels of their 2022 debut LP Superstar, Pure Love sees Mall Girl take the old faithful indie and dreampop blueprints and infuse them with their own idiosyncratic charm. For those not quite fully clued up with their contemporary Norwegian dreampop, Superstar was a record that saw Mall Girl receive laudits upon high due to its utter refusal to sit cosily within the comfortable parameters of what indie pop and its related music spheres typically sound like. If one were to imagine a modern indie-pop record crafted by the hands of, say, Andy Warhol, you probably wouldn’t be too far off. Pure Love continues where this respective record left off, albeit with a newfound focus. Instead of focus on a sense of subtle abstractionism, Pure Love takes direct inspiration from the world of midwest emo and modern math rock. The end result is a record as organically fluid and somewhat confusing as the emotion of newfound love itself, but just as irresistibly infatuating.

Whilst an idyllic sound reminiscent of acts such as Goat Girl, Kississipi and SUDS may be the crux and bedrock of this record, it’s what Mall Girl have built upon this foundation that makes Pure Love so alluring. Inhabiting this fertile soundstage are not just nods towards fellow acts within their scene and motifs taken from the aforementioned geographically distant US midwest, but organic ingenuity. It’s not the fusion of gentle indie pop and technically madcap math fretwork that makes this record so interesting, but rather how Mall Girl romanticise these strange bedfellows. Much akin to the record’s lyrical focus on love, romance and our often chaotic reactions to our brains swimming in intoxicating chemicals and newfound hormones, the band have entwined differentiating musical motifs with delicate, all-natural love and affection.

This sense of organic care and dedication fully permeates the record, lifting it with a sense of adoration. One only has to be infatuated by the lazily aromatic drawl and the twinkling fretwork within ‘Energy Lights’ or be seduced by the wonderfully cathartic splendour of ‘English Breakfast’ and it’s sidewinding guitar solo – something that would sound wholly at home within the latest Polyphia record – in order to be lulled by the chemistry within this record. However, much akin to the nature of romance and love, this fusion of styles progresses and mutates across the record. Whilst these aforementioned tracks may pacify, other tracks demonstrate a more explosive and overt approach. ‘Inside Out’ presents a fantastic dichotomy between maximalist fuzzed out leads and plucked strings and leading singles ‘Super Lazy Girl’ and ‘Emo Shred’ sound like Mall Girl directly challenging math rock titans such as Tricot, Covet and Elephant Gym in thanks to their corresponding complexity. However, the assuring and placating vocals of Bethany Forseth-Reichberg remain a steadfast presence, and ensures the overall feeling of this record is one of easy-going tenderness.

To be truthful, the only issue to be had with this record lies with its opener ‘Inzane’. Whilst the majority of Pure Love is of poised, delicate and romantically idyllic nature, this track – complete with orchestral strings and even mammoth solo – feels somewhat, well, larger than life. It may be the band’s attempt at creating a gargantuan arena-rock symphony, but given the tracks that come following, it’s somewhat misleading towards the record’s contents. But such a minor misstep does not discredit the brilliance of this record as a whole. Here, Mall Girl have taken the well-stained and studied blueprint of indie pop and have crafted something brilliant and fresh that just radiates warmth and love. The world may seem a like a cruel and callous place, but Pure Love shows that devotion, passion and affection is still in abundance within art and culture.