Mall Girl

Oslo based Mall Girl pulls off a neat trick by couching their midwest emo inspired, sometimes explosive music inside a fizzy exterior, topped off with a bright and colorful layer. There are also some dream pop bits that run through their songs, but for the most part, it is the marriage between their pop-adjacent indie rock and the tricky, shifty guitar work that defines their sound. Given their strong melodic core, their tunes tend to linger in the ear. Vocalist Bethany Forseth-Reichberg has the kind of presence and delivery that accentuates the band's sound. Guitarist Iver Tandsether is the patient one in the bunch, as he keeps it under wraps, hanging in there with a gentle arpeggio for stretches of time, before he breaks into the frantic, scorching bits.