Photo by Anna Rogneby
Premiere: Mall Girl linger in the moment with new song, ‘My Sweet Mall Girl’
The indie pop band opt to stay cuddled with a lover in the moment.
Intimacy is never easy. Discard what you think you know; it’s often a precipice at which we all teeter, tottering like a fool before we back away from the unknown. Out of Norway, indie pop four-piece Mall Girl feel a feverish rush to their cheeks, a soft pink shimmer that deceives them. With their new song, the aptly called “My Sweet Mall Girl,” premiering today, they instead opt to let the moment, the embrace, the tangle of sheets, and skin on skin, wash over them. “Do you need me like I need you,” singer Bethany Forseth-Reichberg body slams the thoughts rambling inside her head. But she remains silent, shackling those erratic questions with her lover’s soft gaze.
The band ⏤ rounded with Iver Armand Tandsether (guitar), Hannah Veslemøy Narvesen (drums), Eskild Myrvoll (bass) ⏤ shove the listener into a blanketed mound of ’80s synths, a dazzling swirl as transportive as magical. Their fears throb in their throats, but they squelch every notion, allowing whatever will be to be. “All I want to do / Is lay here right by you,” Forseth-Reichberg later coos. Drums crash, guitar purrs, and her voice glues it all together into a neon-hued pattern.
Recorded in Oslo’s Studio Paradiso, “My Sweet Mall Girl” explodes as a batch of fireworks, vibrant and crunchy. To say it’s the kind of pulsating, burst of sun to ready the senses (and the mind) for summertime is an understatement. “[This song] explores what it’s like to want someone closer in your life and share all your intimate secrets,” the band offers over email. “But daring to open up isn’t always as easy as one expects, and somewhere along the line you realize that all you really long for is to lay next to someone and hope that time can stand still for just a little longer.”
Mall Girl is still in its relative infancy, having formed after a series of jam sessions. The group released a debut in 2018 called “Slay Queen,” following with “Don’t Get It” (2019) and “Love Me” earlier this year. Each entry is luminescent in its emissions, contagious and glorious nuggets of pop music. “My Sweet Mall Girl” is the latest piece of the puzzle.
Listen below:
