Album Review- Mark Mallman- Magic Time

Mark Mallman is a Minneapolis legend. I don’t know that I would have ran into his music if it had not been for a Minnesotan who told me to see him when he came to town. I saw him in 2006 which doesn’t seem that long ago. Mallman has been described as “Elton John meets Darby Crash” which feels quite accurate. His reputation as a piano player with punk attitude made wanting to see him in concert a “no brainer”. 

I find it hard to explain Mallman’s music as he is one of those musical chameleons but definitely the biggest influence is 1970s glam. There’s a lot of Bolan, Elton and Mott in his style. There’s plenty of 70s American rock too- a bit of Aerosmith, a bit of Springsteen, and yeah even maybe a bit of John Cale confrontational craziness. 

He has recorded ten solo albums starting in 1998 and on those albums- a whole list of Midwest and Minnesota rock royalty have guested-Kat Bjelland (Babes in Toyland) Davey Von Bohlen and Dan Didier (The Promise Ring)Slim Dunlap (The Replacements) Ed Akerson (Polara) Erik Applewhite (Tapes and Tapes) Jeremy Ylvislaker (Andrew Bird) Craig Finn (The Hold Steady) and Shannon Frid (Cloud Cult). Mallman is a Minneapolis legend with a star on the outside of the legendary First Avenue. It was a Minnesotan (a different one this time) that reminded me of Mallman. You see besides making solo records, he has written books, curated playlists, made music for TV and Movies, and maybe now in 2025, his highest profile gig- Musical historian on TikTok and Instagram. 

It prompted me to look to see what he had been up to, and sure enough, he had released an album a few months ago called Magic Time. He’s always been on small labels and the only time the Press really seemed to cover him was those magical “indie rock” years of the late aughts before Pitchfork and their ilk moved from Fleet Foxes, Panda Bear and Bon Iver to more pop fare like Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Lana Del Rey. 

 In many ways. 2002s Red Ballroom was his high watermark produced by Paul Q Kolderie (Uncle Tupelo, Radiohead, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hole, Morphine). It was around this time, he was making a name for himself with his marathon performances in Minnesota. In 2004, he performed a song over two consecutive days only breaking for the bathroom. In 2010, he performed for 78 hours straight. He would outdo that in 2012 with “Marathon 4” a continuous 180 hour moving performance, broadcast on his webpage- starting in New York going to Los Angeles with Mallman wired up in such a way his biorhythms continued the music while he was sleeping. I have to admit that the last time I took notice of Mallman’s 2016 The End is Not the End which was probably his most explicit Bowie homage- following his mother’s death, he drew heavily from Bowie’s Scary Monsters. When it came to 2020, Mallman like a lot of artists used his Covid-era time to record the memorable single “Quarantined”.

I totally missed his last album 2021s Happiness, an album that was an extension of his 2019 autobiography- “The Happiness Playlist” Checking out Mallman’s short music history videos as suggested by my Minnesotan friend, I immediately thought I would check for recent albums and sure enough, there was Magic Time- released in June of 2025, how fortuitous to find it in time to mix it into my October listening. As someone who had enjoyed Mallman’s music but never drawn to a particular album, I was shocked how much Magic Time sucked me in. I would imagine most would be put off by the cheesy horror movie cover and song titles full of cryptids, vampires and ghosts. That surely isn’t the sales pitch for a lot of indie rockers, but it somehow is the perfect fit for Mallman. 

His piano driven style is still hard to pin down, though there’s definitely an emphasis on 70s glam. Like the things that go bump in the night, it’s hard to take the proceedings too seriously. Yet, the way Mallman weaves seemingly autobiographical facts makes it a compelling listen. There’s a bit of Ben Folds. There’s Bolan of course. Yet I also hear some Warren Zevon who fittingly wrote his most famous song about a monster. The best song on the album is “I Know the Mothman” in which the most memorable character may be that of Mallman himself-a long time, high mileage musician. Songs like “Clowns” and “Christopher Lee” come close to that high watermark. For seemingly silly subjects, there’s a large amount of pathos. 

While certain songs are better than others, there’s generally no bad songs here “Screaming in My Dreams” opens with a cinematic flourish fills with biographical details. Is the real horror the Music Industry? The theme makes the album fun and smaller gems like “Seen My Own Ghost” give real depth with new wave keyboards and storytelling lyrics, while “Poison Flower” slows things to an Alice Cooper worthy glam horror ballad, and “The Cancer” is a string laden Beatlesque number with accompanying flute. If you don’t like Mallman’s voice, it’s likely that this won’t win you over. That said, I was impressed with how Mallman was able to put together a signature album this far into his career. I rate it highly and find it one of the most compelling albums of recent years.