Album Review: Mark Mallman - Invincible Criminal

MARK MALLMAN
INVINCIBLE CRIMINAL
(Badman Recording Co.)
www.markmallman.com

Why can't pop music be more like this? Mark Mallman's latest effort, Invincible Criminal, was just released last week from Badman Recording Company (his third for the label), and it's instantly catchy, fun, and enjoyable.

Mallman would've been huge in the alternative rock scene in the mid-90s, but his sound still remains fresh in the late 00s. He's got a weird quirk about him that comes across in most of his music. Maybe it's the fact that his main instrument is piano, and not a guitar like most rock'n'rollers, or maybe he just truly knows how to channel his strange personality into a recording.

However he does it, Mark Mallman continues to take a standard alternative-pop-rock sound, and tweak it in ways that are spirited in a different way than the average. A few slower songs ("Before the Music's Over" and "Mercy Calls") do drag the album down a little bit at times, but not enough to bring down the high energy of the faster tracks.