Mal Blum returns with new LP, The Villain, out July 11, 2025 via Get Better Records —a striking resurgence that combines the artist’s trademark blend of searing and wry lyricism with novel boldness and slight camp.
Though the title might seem to suggest a torchy breakup record (admittedly, those elements are present as on lead-single “I’m so Bored,”) ultimately The Villain is a work about human complexity. Each song reflects aspects and archetypes of villainy in ourselves, in others, and in the world around us.
Throughout 11 tracks, Blum explores shifting perspectives, internal truths, subtle deceptions and moral dualities. This makes up the main album: a mix of textured indie rock, alt-rock and pop influences shaped heavily by a new collaboration with breakout producer Jessica Boudreaux, and featuring several contributions by longtime bandmates Audrey Zee Whitesides (Speedy Ortiz) and Ricardo Lagomasino (Lucy Dacus).
In the world of the album, there is no one villain. Sometimes the villain is an unreliable narrator, a misunderstood character, or a heel-turn performance of villainy. Often, perhaps notably, given the historical and rapidly mounting demonization of trans people as villainous bogeymen (explored on tracks like “Killer” and “A Small Request”) the villain appears to be a purposeful external construct.
If half The Villain focuses on relationship to others, the other half prioritizes relationship to self. The songs explore not only the destruction of partnership but the rebuilding of identity, with a lingering question of what is truly "bad" or "right.” It is not an album about being trans (to call it such would be reductive and inaccurate), but the album themes are firmly rooted in, and contextually informed by Blum’s trans-masculine and non-binary perspective.
Relatedly, in addition to being Blum’s first full length album since 2019’s Pity Boy, and fifth LP, The Villain will be the first album developed for their voice’s lower register after several years on testosterone. This process prompted them to examine their own relationship with masculinity reflected against a cultural narrative that reviles gender transition. Within certain tracks, they take on the role of the trans villain, red cape and all: (“I killed the previous tenant/in my head/or so they said” Blum quips on “Killer.”)
“Around this time I was having to confront my own associations with masculinity and, separately, with self perception versus how others were perceiving me,” Blum said. “I’m someone who is already prone to believe that I’m bad and I think part of the album is about looking for evidence of that…but I also think a large part is about committing to allowing yourself to be misunderstood. The act of giving up control and playing the villain in someone else’s story. I wanted to embrace and play with something that terrifies me in real life.”
In moments like these, The Villain points the way to acknowledging and even reveling in the limits of perception and finds its way to a raw self-acceptance emboldened by the bad faith misunderstandings of other people. By embracing the campiness inherent in the villain archetype, Blum reveals the absurdity of such rhetoric and attempts to provide an antidote to its poison—at least for 40 minutes.
Like it or not, in polarized and turbulent times, we’re each tapped for a role. In a culture obsessed with binary villains and heroes, Blum shifts the prism toward complexity. The album is ultimately a work about questioning legacy, and the stories we tell ourselves versus the stories we are told about ourselves. The listener is left not with easy answers, but invitations. Welcome to your Villain era.
