MELØ has been making music since 2017. Up until this year, he has released a number of singles and a couple of EPs, but he has finally released his debut album, Songs From The Spirit Box, this year and it has been worth the wait. A number of his previously released singles have made their way onto the album, as they should, but MELØ has included them in a way that they feel part of the album.
All the songs save one (“The One I Love”) are written by MELØ and the interesting thing, right from the very beginning, is his versatility. The album opens with the interesting and guitar-driven “Black October”, an instrumental that sets the scene for the other songs to follow. It is a moody and far too short instrumental that incorporates guitar and keyboards beautifully. This leads to the first pop-oriented track “King Of Nothing”. It has dark undertones, which adds a great deal of depth and layers to the song. Although it has already been released as a single, it fits beautifully between the opening song and the third song, “Want To See”, which has an almost garage sound to it, but is full of hooks and great production. In the first three tracks, MELØ incorporates three distinct styles and genres.
The beauty of Songs From The Spirit Box lies in the fact that it is so full of different sounds and styles. Songs like “Death Of A Good Man” is more guitar based, whereas a song like “Glitter” has a much more soul/rythym and blues base. It is fun to see where MELØ will take his listening audience. Even the one cover on the album, REM’s “The One I Love” is very different from the original and shouldn’t fit on the album, but it does.
MELØ has an excellent voice, and the music is perfect. Some credit must go to Domenico Ambrosio, who not only produced the album but engineered and mixed it as well. Everything comes together perfectly on this album, and in some ways, it does have a feeling of a much older album.
The album ends with the ‘instrumental’. There are voices but the vocals are added to be part of the layers of sound, and it works beautifully. It is a very interesting song and the perfect book end for the album. And with that, Songs From The Spirit Box is over.
MELØ has released a very impressive debut album. He was very smart in taking his time in preparing his debut album. With Songs From The Spirit Box, he proves that he is more than a singles artist, and that, like artists such as David Bowie who could write hits, is an equally impressive album artist.