Mamalarky
Hex Key
EPITAPH
For better or worse, life never truly hits a plateau. Mamalarky’s latest album Hex Key is evidence of this. Three albums and nearly a decade together as a group, the LA-via-Austin quartet are making the most clear-headed fuzz rock of their career—but that doesn’t mean they’ve reached a resting point, or are even reassured in their growth. “What do we do / When doubt comes calling through our window,” Livvy Bennett spryly sings on the Crumb-reminiscent “#1 Best of All Time.” Later, on “Blow Up,” she wonders how to lessen the unnerving energy: “How can I keep acting like I’m fine? / I’m a smiley face that’s two dots and a line,” she flatly sings.
The answer? Use that as fuel to keep making shit. “A lot of this record is about reconciling with rage, finding a way to create something useful with it,” Bennett shared in a press release. “You can’t really talk yourself out of a feeling, but there’s always a good place to put them.” To that point, Hex Key is all harmony pressure-cooked by frustration. Noor Khan’s snappy bass lines, Michael Hunter’s crystalline synths, and Dylan Hill’s effervescent percussion frame every kind of inner turmoil imaginable. The first three songs alone confront fear of vulnerability (“Broken Bones”), exhausting self-doubt (“Won’t Give Up”), and grieving for a past self (“The Quiet”)—and Mamalarky meet each of these battles with a funkified grace.
Hex Key demonstrates that the quartet can pen a classic, groovy, verse-chorus pop song, yet the highest points of the album are when they go off the rails into proggy territory. “Blow Up” is easily one the album’s most striking rides, packed with a dissonant vocal call and response, rascally clanging percussion, and a perky Steely Dan guitar solo packed into little more than two minutes. The following “Blush” is an underwater daydream with eerie backing vocal cries and some vague bubbling noises. And not that every song needs an off-the-beaten-path solo, but here, fluorescent synths are the track’s firework finale.
It’s these vibrant, chaotic moments that prove Mamalarky’s bricolage tone is at its strongest when it avoids accessible pop formulas. As noted on “Blow Up,” the heart of Mamalarky is unpredictable but genuine and true.
