Born in Argentina and based in London, Malena Zavala is an artist, producer and filmmaker. If This Life Could Start Again, her third album, reflects wide-ranging influences, including but not confined to dream pop, folk, rock and synth pop, and contains a chorus of different voices, held together by her clear and compelling voice.
The album acts as a guide through dark emotions and difficult situations, using the mountains of her home country as a metaphor to navigate the peaks and troughs of the human heart. As she sings on ‘Veins of the Paraná’, she is “picking up the pieces of this broken future.” The troubles themselves remain veiled and inexact, just out of sight, making the songs easy to relate to. The opening song,’Only Thing That’s Right’, finds Zavala seeking solace in the arms of a lover, perhaps, her unadorned voice stark against piano chords and a chorus of sighs.
This is a courageously gentle, vulnerable album, with light elements to balance the heaviness elsewhere. Zavala has a neat line in finding dry wit in the depths of despair, as in ‘Lost In The Depths of The Andes’ when she sings, “Someone call a doctor, I think I’m going to die, I can’t find a pulse or any sign of life.” ‘What You Need’ centres around the importance of gratitude before dissolving in a swathe of gentle ambient noise.
If This Life Could Start Again sounds smooth and highly polished throughout. At times, perhaps, you wonder what it would be like with some of the rough edges left ragged. But as ‘A Different Path’ brings the album to a surging dreampop finale, ultimately, you’re left grateful for an album to bring light to the last dark days of an endless January.
If This Life Could Start Again is available now on all major streaming platforms.
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