Accompanying the release of debut EP ‘And…Beyond’, via Think Twice records, Bristol alt-psych quartet Melotone share video for the ice-smooth ‘Running Cold’.
There’s often a scene at the end of any light-hearted (but ultimately emotional painful) romantic comedy – think Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally – where the audience are tossed through a highlights package of our on-screen couples’ moments of greatest chemistry, often at the point where the relationship has collapsed, or is on the precipice of doing so. We are encouraged to celebrate those joyous memories, yet mourn their passing, and in turn reflect on the transience of our own mortal existences.
On ‘Running Cold’ Melotone show they’re not ones to shun such cinematic heights of wistful poignancy. With itching guitars and shuffling drums, the track motors delicately, yet with the firmest of urgencies – much like the rapid flashbacks through romantic memories into which singer Alex Madely vainly seeks refuge with his gorgeously pained lyrical sequences – “Like a body running cold, I crawl back home to your door, Where the Glass is Full”.
Deftly melding the breeziness of indie with the full-bodied riches of chill-out psychedelia, a sympathy with the 60s Tropicalia too gives Melotone a luxurious edge. Madeley’s planing vocal melodies, like the flights of a dove, share more in common with the great chanteurs Tom Ze or Jorge Ben Jor than with anyone crooning from the other end of the oceans. (Half Brazilian himself, others of the band’s tracks see him pine in Portuguese.)
The video that accompanies ‘Running Cold’ is appropriately candid yet oblique : the band chop onions, peel potatoes, and overfill cups of water in a rural cottage, in what could be the most refreshing and watery set of visuals of the year so far.
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