Get ready to proclaim your allegiance to alt-pop royalty KiNG MALA and the throne of forthright confessions she sits upon with the release of her new EP SPILT MILK. It’s the latest collection from the merciless and brooding songstress — one sure to convert you into a loyal believer in her unabashed songwriting and the dark atmospherics that swallow them. She’s also currently wrapping up a run of tour dates that concludes next month at The Echoplex in Los Angeles on December 6th.
From the beginning, KiNG MALA — the project of El Paso-born musician Areli Castro — was an outlet for her paradoxical expressions of bravado and vulnerability. On her 2020 debut EP GEMiNi, those dualities find an alluring conduit in candid concessions of desire and anxiety. As on the insatiable, electronica-shuddering “Sugarblind” or the ebullient piano-led introspection “Homebody.”
In the aftermath, she started to toy with masculine tropes, adopting it as a decidedly empowering aesthetic. The deliciously venomous single “She Calls Me Daddy” arrived as both a reintroduction and a perfect synthesis of that new persona. It’s why Castro took on the title of “KING” as opposed to “QUEEN” — while the second half of her moniker “MALA” translates the fierce honesty and audacity inherent to the music she creates.
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By the time KiNG MALA unveiled her second EP Honey Catching Season, she’d fully immersed herself in an array of wickedly provocative electronics. On tracks like “Cult Leader,” she savors the enthralling energy conjured by a dark need for adoration, while the punchy beats of “Guillotine Dreams” edge her closer toward the temptation of chaotic vindication. “But the universe still has me in a choke hold, so / If life is gonna fuck me,” she muses on “Sloppy” (feat. UPSAHL). “Then give it me sloppy / On a silver platter, serve me a disaster.”
With SPILT MILK she makes another intentional deviation — no longer is she disguising her insecurities and angst behind masks of devilish charm and bombast. Instead, the EP represents a “vulnerable, open, and almost unwilling confession of everything,” KiNG MALA explained. Still wielding an intoxicatingly unapologetic irreverence, its songs gush with a ravenous need to cull all her “fears, crushes, disappointments, rejection, love, [and] mundanity.”
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Across nine tracks she pairs her biting reflections with buoyant and borderline frantic sonics. There are the withering self-confrontations of “i only smoke to feel bad” and the simmering fury of “sunny side up,” where KiNG MALA stares down the painful differences between being an optimist and finding yourself wearied by a person who refuses to change. Other standouts include its searing takedown of blind faith in “gods on t.v.” and the EP’s manifesto outro “grocery store.”
Words: Steven Ward
See KiNG MALA at The Echoplex in Los Angeles on December 6th.
Visit KiNG MALA on her website, TikTok, and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
KiNG MALA tour
11/28 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
11/30 – Biltmore Cabaret – Vancouver, BC
12/1 – Madame Lou’s – Seattle, WA
12/6 – The Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA
Listen to SPILT MILK the new EP from KiNG MALA below!
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