Album Review: ‘MALCOLM TODD’ by Malcolm Todd

BY: ISABELA RANGEL / CO-NEWS-EDITOR

(Photo Credit: Genius)

Who is Malcolm Todd? That TikTok guy who posts snippets of his half-finished songs? The random opener for a half-full venue with the scrappy band behind him? A Steve Lacy rip-off? On his debut album, Malcolm Todd, this indie newcomer confronts these labels and creates one of his own, giving us an album that’s unpolished, heartfelt, and entirely, utterly his own. 

Malcolm, most recently known for opening for Omar Apollo on the God Said No tour, finds his own footing with this project with a surprising confidence. His rise to stardom is a complete product of the 2020s: fed by a few TikTok endorsements and homegrown with a mere drum pad and keyboard in his bedroom. But this project proves that he’s more than just a lucky kid caught up in the algorithm. Across 14 tracks, Malcolm Todd plays like the soundtrack to a teen rom-com, fusing the bittersweet, the sarcastic, and the sentimental, all into an album full of love.

The album opens with the deceptively titled “Harry Styles,” a tongue-in-cheek, quirky introduction that gives insight into Malcolm’s inner spiral in a blunt, synth-like track. Some fans call Todd’s sarcastic two-minute monologue an odd way to start a debut album, but that’s exactly the thing that makes it compelling. Todd uses the popstar’s name as a provocation, a theme that laces through his laments of not being a big enough artist to headline festivals just quite yet (namely, Camp Flog Gnaw).

By the time you reach the second track, “Make Me a Better Man,” Todd’s sense of humor has quickly morphed into that of heartache. Malcolm croons on in a catchy, melancholic tune that details his distress: “I ain’t ever cried but I’m getting closer than I’d like/You had my heart in your two hands and you let it go.” 

Standing as the only collaboration on the album, “Bleed” with Omar Apollo is one of the more groovier sounds on the album—and it works perfectly. Their vocals weave into the synth-laced track, a woozy production style that gives listeners that all too familiar lovesick feeling. The other leading single, “Chest Pain,” feeds into these emotions with a repeated, desperate chorus of “I love-” that leaves listeners with the frustrated ache of not finishing the proper ‘I love you.’ 

Riddled throughout this angsty track list are songs like “Cheer me on” and “Concrete,” which do well in adding texture to this heartbreak, with quirky guitar riffs and complicated lyrics that are as charming as it is romantically cliche. By the time the track “I’ll Come Back For You” wraps up the album, it’s clear that there’s a certain element to his songwriting that makes his music so personal—almost as if hearing your diary entries set to a soundtrack. 

Malcolm Todd is what it sounds like to hear an artist figure himself out in real time: messy, fresh, and familiar all at once. In letting us listen in, Todd invites us into a downward spiral of young love, heartbreak, and self-discovery that will make listeners want to revisit it time and time again.  

Score: 8.5/10