Skip to content
Reviews

Malachai, ‘Ugly Side of Love’

8
SPIN Rating: 8 of 10
Release Date: February 02, 2010
Label: Domino

Much like countrymen Clinic, the Bristol pair of Gee and Scott wear masks and funny hats and are smitten with ’60s pop, ska, and ’70s agit-punk. But Malachai’s mashes are terse, loopy, and murky, spurring Portishead’s Geoff Barrow to release their first single. While “Shitkicker” evokes Clinic’s m.o., the duo dash in a quote of “Buffalo Girls.” Dusty drums propel “Warriors” as they sneer lines from the famous movie of the same name. Elsewhere, they conjure the Kinks (“Moonsurfin”) and the Pretty Things (“Snowflake”), but deploy samples to keep the proceedings appropriately sullied.

BUY:

iTunesAmazon