Mahal
| Toro y Moi
Mahal
Mahal is the seventh studio album by American musician Toro y Moi, released on April 29, 2022, through Dead Oceans, as his first release under this label. The title is derived from the Tagalog word "mahal", which translates to "love" or "expensive" in English. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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The Guardian
The seventh album from chillwave’s leading light soars with psychedelic meshes, but is too uneven to cherish.
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Slant Magazine
Toro y Moi’s Mahal feels a lot like the aural equivalent of lazing around on a Sunday afternoon.
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The Wall Street Journal
The latest album from the chillwave pioneer highlights the artist’s compositional strengths, jumping among eras and genres with ease.
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DIY Magazine
Where ‘Mahal’ lives and breathes is in the minutiae, from the psychedelic car engine sputters on the opening track, to the hi-fi ‘losing signal’ outro in ‘The Loop’, we are but passengers on Bear’s breezy road trip, immersed in his supple and fluid melodies that stretch yearningly over a hazy canvas of back-road scuzz.
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Loud and Quiet
The faux-pop psychedelia of ‘Magazine’ and ‘Last Year’ offer no real substance, slipping away from funk oddity towards something akin to a decaf version of Jamiroquai. The reliance on the squeaky clean quickly becomes Mahal’s undoing. For every moment of greatness the listener is met with two or three tracks of airy paisley pop. This creates a lack of a consistent groove, sullying what at times promised to be a droopy, floating delight.
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Treblezine
Chaz has performed some career-best acrobatics here, going out of his way to avoid mentioning the big, well—you know, as he promised himself. I’m not one of those artists who writes about it. But as we all enter a third pandemic year, sometimes what’s not on the page, makes the greatest impact.
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The Skinny
For his seventh record as Toro y Moi, Chaz Bear has curated a sonic escape route fit for a time of exceptional dread.
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Stereoboard
This is a relaxed album for chilled-out cats, and that should make it a success, yet too often it feels like we have tuned into a fictional radio station from the video game Grand Theft Auto. Maybe that was the aim, but either way, ‘Mahal’ is an excellent case study in crafting a vintage sound experience, but you may be onto the next thing as soon as the record's over.
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The Needle Drop
Chaz comes through with a cute, catchy, and colorful little concept album.
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The Indiependent
Despite its brief shortcomings, this album is a tonal paradise that weaves the esoteric stylings of Toro y Moi into a refreshed psych-rock experience. An eclectic and, at times, superbly stunning body of work by a veteran on board his beloved Jeepney.
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Peanut Butter Pope
All is chill on Magazine – including a wistful appearance from Salami Rose Joe Louis – but tumbling drums that allow for a few weird points. Simply fusing a sense of chill with an idiosyncratic core works wonders for Toro y Moi – Mahal is his quaintest, and potentially best, album in some time.
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Pitchfork
Chaz Bear’s latest is a loose and lively psych-funk melange—the sound of a one-man band learning how to jam.
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NME
Five years in the making, the artist's seventh studio album is a divine demonstration of genre-blending, psychedelic electronic music.
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AllMusic
It might scare off some of the fans drawn to the pop side of Toro, but for those who appreciate the subtle twists and turns of his early work -- and especially those who wish he had expanded on What For? -- this is Bear and band at their most exciting, most inventive, and most fun.
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Gigwise
With over 12 years of expertise under his belt, the multi-instrumentalist Chaz Bear has become a master of his craft. Now releasing his seventh studio album under his alias Toro Y Moi, MAHAL is no exception.
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Northern Transmissions
MAHAL made me sift through Toro y Moi’s old back catalogue. It made me crave songs from Anything in Return, What For? And even 2018’s Outer Peace. It actually changed my initial impressions of some of his past work. I really hope this is just a speed bump for Toro y Moi and he surprises me again in the future.
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Clash Magazine
Overall, the album is a tour-de-force bound to leave the listener nostalgic for warm, sunny times with an inherently groove-focused, genre-bending sound.
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