Melodrome – Flood
Massachusetts tree piece 'pop rock' band Melodrome's fourth album 'Flood' is a collection of catchy, sometimes melodic tunes, often with some memorable riffs and choruses. Sometimes evoking thoughts of The Rolling Stones, Mott The Hoople and even a watered down AC/DC, the band show a maturity that I can imagine to be expressed vividly when they perform live.
'I Wanna Run' is a stripped down rock track with a driving rhythm and catchy lyric and melody. There's a nice rawness to the sound and the 'live' feel is very refreshing; a good album opener. The theme continues with 'Complacent' which is, in the main, slower and a bit wordier; the story telling working well over some solid guitar and harmonies. The moody 'Enough' follows. This is a good song with a very memorable melody and very reminiscent of the style of the likes of Mott The Hoople.
Melodrome's versatility has already been proved with the first three tracks on here and the listener's expectations are somewhat lowered with slightly disjointed 'Shelter'. Even though the formula is pretty much the same as what has come previously, the song seems to wander off at some odd tangents and I found it difficult to follow.
Robby Baier's voice is quite distinctive and its raw edge fits very well with the rhythm section of Jesko Stahl (bass) and Justin Guip (drums). The 'pop rock' returns with 'With My Friends' and the rockier 'With My Friends'; the latter showing the band in a more expressive mode and sounding a lot like The New York Dolls.
Overall, I found the album a little inconsistent. There are some good solid tracks but some where I just didn't get it. The diversity of the first three songs promised much but the subsequent efforts only occasionally delivered. There were too many tracks that sounded similar such as 'Sticky' and 'Oh Yeah', though there are several highlights, including 'Rock With Me' and 'Enough'.
I felt that the band were restrained, hoping to stick to the more commercial side of rock and I wonder what they could produce if they allowed themselves more freedom to express themselves.