No longer so freaky or folksy, Devendra Banhart returns to our ears with his eighth album, the somewhat low key Mala. Perhaps losing the wackiness that once brought Banhart to our attention, these days it seems that the man has evolved into a complete and utter charmer. Much of Mala feels like slow and easy jams that have been crafted into ’60s styled pop songs about love and romance. There’s a focus on sweet and simple melodies that drift through verse and chorus with playful whimsy. In the fluid groove of Für Hildegard Von Bingen, for instance, we see the fabled saint leaving the church behind to become a VJ on TV. Even when Banhart hits those love song romantic notes he’s not giving us odes of unfettered love. It is tempered with sly and sarcastic humour. When his girlfriend begs him to come back on the droll Your Fine Petting Duck he reminds her of just how much more philandering he always was in his ways. Eclectic as all hell, the tune evolves from ’50s doo wops to stomping synth pop sung in German in just five short minutes. In this context Mala works a dualism that is at once the feminine form of bad in Spanish and an affectionate appellation for a significant other in Serbian. From the cosmic dreaminess of Won’t You Come Home to the contemplation of temptation and evil on Taurobolium, this album is a smooth dreamy trip through the hyperactive imagination of Banhart.
BY THE SIDE MAN
Best Track: Won’t You Come Home
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: VETIVER, OS MUTANTES, COCO ROSIE, CAETANO VELOSO
In A Word: Surreal
