Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
George Mallas’ 2018 sophomore release unscathed is an eleven-song collection that finds the New York-based singer/songwriter in fine form. It’s illuminating to look at this album in light of the recent release of Mallas’ third album Let the Day Decide as it shows his songwriting development over the last four years. This is pre-pandemic Mallas, when COVID-19 wasn’t yet a part of our global lexicon, but listeners will hear his essentially positive, if not buoyant, point of view pervading over the album’s entirety. He is the same man now as he is here on unscathed, albeit wiser perhaps, and certainly more grateful than ever before.
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He can even make a breakup sound like a new beginning. The album’s opener “I’m Gone” is an impressive piece of songwriting for several reasons and the aforementioned is one of its chief strengths. The sense of freedom someone experiences sliding out from under the yoke of a relationship/marriage/et al gone bad will connect with the wide-open energy of this song, particularly the relish in Mallas’ voice. He sings about being gone like a man leaving a room on fire.
His influences are clear. Classic Elton John and even some of the pianist/songwriter’s middle-period echoes throughout these cuts. Other strands make their presence heard and felt. “God and My Girlfriend” marries Mallas’ wont for piano-based tunes with some suitable classic country affectations for another sure audience pleaser. His songwriting with Melanie Berti is a big part of unscathed’s appeal to listeners and they’ve collaborated on writing four of the album’s eleven numbers.
“I Take A Walk”, the first of those collaborations, has an emotive yet straightforward vocal arrangement that never cheapens the song’s sensitivities. Emma Kiara’s vocal presence compliments Mallas’ own extraordinarily well. His piano is always placed in the forefront of the mix, as it should be, and serves as a quasi-vocalist in his songwriting, among its other duties. His affinity for blending horns into his songs gives them a fuller body than they would otherwise possess and few songs on this release benefit more from their inclusion than “You Fell for Me”. The brass jumps out of this song like a balloon popping yet doesn’t strike a jarring note in the song. Instead, it punctuates the emotion without ever sounding gaudy.
“The Problem” is another of Mallas’ co-writes with Berti and, arguably, their most dramatic. Mallas brings woodwinds into his musical landscape, and it fills the song with a meditative spirit that broadens its sound rather than sounding like an affectation. It’s a condensed piece of musical cinema running a little over four minutes that nevertheless feels as panoramic as a song twice as long. It will be one of unscathed’s highlights for many.
There’s a light presence of strings, practically ghostly, in the finale “Tidings and Cheer” and it helps accentuate the song’s melancholic mood. Mallas’ music explores shadow with the same surefootedness that it fields life’s joys, but there’s a redemptive and cathartic sound that it assumes rather than wallowing in despair. George Mallas’ unscathed is meant to be an “open-ended” title you can interpret multiple ways, but many will like how it points to the victory that these eleven songs ultimately signify.
Loren Sperry
