MELY - review added 17th August 2009
Album Review: Portrait Of A Porcelain Doll (2009)
For fans of: Alternative Metal... and Nu Grunge
Austrian band Mely (short for Melancholy, apparently) got together in 1999. Portrait Of A Porcelain Doll is their 4th album, following 2007's ...Leave and Enter Empty Rooms..., and marks the debut of new drummer Hannes Ganeider. He joins Andreas Mataln (vocals, guitar), Martin Mataln (vocals, keys), Peter Lengfeldner (vocals, guitar) and Daniel Huber (bass).
Mely have already supported bands such as Ektomorf, Anathema, Graveworm, Opeth, My Dying Bride, Dimmu Borgir and more. On the evidence of this album, and the fact they are now signed to a decently proportioned label, they could be moving further up the food chain.
The songs vary in style and character throughout. There are moments of absolute heaviness with the best guitar tone you could possibly imagine. Other segments are melodic, symphonic, melancholic and possibly alcoholic. The overwhelming feel is of a natural progression from Korn played with a grunge influence. The vocal delivery is somewhere between Rob Flynn of Machinehead, Jerry Cantrell of Alice In Chains and Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society.
Opening track 'Of Doubts And Fears' is one of those entries with an astonishing guitar sound. It begins quietly and has an innocuous air - but it's the same sort of innocuous air that a nuclear bomb would have if you left it in a cardboard box. Just over a minute it that monstrous power chord strikes home and the world feels like a better place. The song itself is good, if not spectacularly brilliant, but I'd sell my family for that guitar tone.
'Grown For Doom' is a downer song that plods and pounds like a sloth with a set of amplified bongos. 'Bricks Against Porcelain Dolls' is a compelling but depressing song with lyrics you wouldn't want playing as hold music at the Samaritans. 'Don't Wake The Sleeping Dog' is good advice. The song itself takes ages to get going and, when it finally does, it's little more than grunge-laden noise. There's something attractive trying to leak out from underneath, but it's as smothered as a cauliflower in a cheese sauce.
'Hell Low' is the album's BIG BEAST of a song. The build-up is beautifully judged, the chorus is a revelation and the slow thoughtful energy of the track is award-worthy. It isn't a consistently heavy track (although it shakes your fillings in places) but it doesn't matter one jot. The result is by far the best track on the album and one of the best this year. 'It Is Cold Without Shoes', like 'Bricks Against Porcelain Dolls', is a song that's overly obsessed with the actions of 'daddy'. It's a strangely catchy track, even if makes you want to slash you wrists with a blunt banana.
'Maybe Yesterday' is a slow builder with hints of grunge and soft Southern Metal expressionism. The musicianship is impressive although the result isn't overly memorable. 'Sweet Six Feet' is a livelier track with a very Korn-y feel, whilst final song 'My Addiction' starts like a mellow sonnet played by a medieval minstrel... morphs into a Beatles LSD trip, and finally becomes a grungy stoner track.
Portrait Of A Porcelain Doll has a few songs with a depth of quality that cast doubt on this band's low-pecking-order status. Ultimately, though, the album is too self-indulgently-introverted to be truly catchy and, few good songs aside, there's little I'd want to listen to again and again.
Check out... 'Hell Low' :)
Track List:
1. Of Doubts And Fears
2. Grown For Doom
3. Bricks Against Porcelain Dolls
4. Don't Wake The Sleeping Dog
5. Hell Low
6. It Is Cold Without Shoes
7. Maybe Yesterday
8. Sweet Six Feet
9. My Addiction
Label: Silverwolf Productions
Artist's website(s): Mely , MySpace
