Oh yes; now this is a pleasant surprise. Quite often the press releases that come attached to 99% of CD’s we receive at Punktastic towers claim that the band are the new (insert band name here) or they reinvent (tired genre here), you tend to dismiss it and simply bang the CD on and decide for yourself. But refreshingly ‘Melee‘ lives up to the billing before them and produce four compellingly original tracks.
Having been around in one form or another for the last four years, they finally decided on a line-up of four including a keyboardist, and to make music as broad as Martin Johnson’s shoulders. The aforementioned four tracks on show seamlessly shift from one genre to another with the minimum of fuss, harbouring sounds of pop punk, rock and jazz over the sly vocals of front man Chris Cron. One word perfectly sums up Melee: ‘smooth’.
A silky piano introduces ‘Mestizo’s love song’ before it opens into a flowery summer like tune which complements the bright and breezy casing and art well, speaking of which perfectly optimises the band in it’s optimistically bright nature. Haunting vocals dominate ‘bells’ although the bouncy uplifting chorus is a joy to behold on an upbeat number, while ‘Girl so cruel’ is another wild step in a different direction with swirling electronic moments layered over a more sombre slice of dark emo tinged pop. We close with the stylishly funky ‘Routines’, a powerful piece of music featuring a sublime guitar riff concurrent throughout over a pacy drum section, and arguably takes the closely run standout track of the EP accolade.
Ultimately EP’s such as this prove frustrating for the listener though. The music on show is of such a high standard, it leaves you begging for more and is a joy to behold. Hopeless Records have got a peach of a band on their hands, with Melee giving a concerted effort at showing some originality in the music by numbers of the punk world, and this surely means they deserve, and can expect bigger things in their future.
Jay