At the end of this week, Mal Blum fans will finally be rewarded with the indie artist's first album in six years, The Villain. As the countdown clock ticks down, they've shared one last advance single: the title track, which is slotted into the penultimate spot on the tracklist. It's a breathy, understated pop tune with introspective lyrics and a lovely little guitar solo.
Blum offered up this context:
I had all but finished the album, and somebody close to me gave me invaluable feedback - they said that I’d explored many aspects of villainy throughout the record, but I hadn’t taken a full song to earnestly turn the spotlight back on myself, to put my sword down, so to speak, and consider my own faults. I happened to have had a co-write that week with an artist named slowleaves/grant davidson and we wrote this. I think it’s an important turn of the album - the title of the album, 'The Villain,' implies that there is one villain. It can even be interpreted as a question, and so it is only fair to turn the question inwards. I think the reveal here is that there is no one villain, obviously.
Listen below.
The Villain is out 7/11 on Get Better.
