Mal Blum is a singer-songwriter who’s only two years older than me, but her music has the maturity of somebody with a lot more years and wisdom.
She and the band that support her don’t exactly write folk music or anything like that, but the singer-songwriter roots are obvious and blatant. Blum is mostly regarded for her skills as a songwriter, which is probably because a lot of the songs just have simple guitar backing tracks that are there mainly to accentuate her voice.
But when the group wants to kick it up a notch, they absolutely can, and they sound great while rocking out. So saying that their biggest strength is lyrical is missing the point, and an arguably obtuse way to measure the success of Mal Blum’s songwriting.
What Mal Blum is great at is atmosphere, which is impressive: they’re not using keyboards or acoustic guitars or anything most of us regularly associate with “atmosphere”. They’re purely using vocals, pulled-back guitars with a hint of distortion (very bluesy without playing the blues), and well-placed percussion to make their point.
It’s possible You Look a Lot Like Me is their best yet. It’s certainly a great introduction for those of us who are unfamiliar with the Mal Blum sound.