MELYS: Rumours + Curses
I never did really see the point of album reviews. You are either going to
buy the album or you're not, but I figured I'd do this anyhow just incase
you are undecided. This album isn't the easiest thing to get hold of in the
world as nowhere seems to be selling it. However, you can order it and have
it fairly quickly which I would thoroughly recommend as it is very good. The
press release describes it as "12 intense, fiercely personal pop songs," but
that sells it short, but in six words you can't convey the enormity of Melys'
achievement so I'll try with quite a few more.
It kicks off with Achilles Heel, a vicious, accusary bitter song which
starts with a quite jarring wucka wucka wucka noise that sounds like a hovering
spaceship, but there are lots of nice tinkly noises like fairies later on.
Paul's vocals can be heard in the background and the whole thing has a good
tune, and like all of Melys' songs the lyrics are strong, even if they are
a personal attack on someone, "it's you that's weak, it's you that's scared",
"persistent parasite". I'm glad it's not me. This happens again in Hope
You Cry Yourself To Sleep ("sometimes wish you'd die").
Next up is Diwifr, Melys' first single with Pinnacle. Being a non Welsh speaker I have no idea what the title means but it's not all that important as it's still stonkingly good and I like listening to it. The lyrics are. split into Welsh and English and the tunes change with the language. The welsh bit sounds like a soundtrack to a public be- heading in it's starkness and sinisterness, which happens a lot on this album, like in Misunderstand Me but sometimes that's a good thing. The English bit is cheerier with more pop melodies, despite the words ("no more making me feel ashamed... free from your derision, mind games and obsessions")
Acid Queen is as corrosive and stinging as the title suggests, about
a man who cheated on the teller of the tale, and the woman he cheated with.
It's a scary song- "I want to kill him/ gouge out his eyes/ write my name
across his face with Stanley knives for what he's done" and displays all of
the hatred and viciousness of Achilles Heel and foretells of the possessiveness
of Lemming. Almost all the songs on Rumours and Curses share these
emotions, which in the hands of a lesser lyricist, would have the distinct
possibility of slipping into something horribly teenage. Here it definitely
does not. Melys are not teenagers, evident in their degree of maturity and
insight and the tunes are always good which lifts the lyrics, if ever they
do get slightly rocky, which is very rare. Irrational is maybe a better way
to describe it, fitting certainly as everyone is irrational, especially with
people they love and people who have hurt them. This is a disturbing , and
my mother would say disturbed, album. It is frightening to the core, down
to the very cover which is a photo of a man gagged with a piece of gaffer's
tape.
On reading
the inlay card for the album I discovered that Paul writes a lot of the lyrics,
and he and Andrea write the others together. This does make a difference.
It shouldn't, but it does. It makes you question things a whole lot more than
if you just think it's all written by a woman which I thought to be the case,
because it's so insightful and perceptive, for want of better words. It's
so right. I can identify with it. All the tales of relationships and the difficulties
involved within them read like something from a feminine point of view yet
the reality is that possibly they aren't. Men see things the same way which
challenges, certainly my own, preconceived ideas of how men think, and are,
and this is carried on with Painfully Thin which I'd hazard a guess
is about being anorexic, not purely because the person is 'painfully thin',
as some people are naturally, or they just don't like to eat; like my brother,
but because of the strength of the character and it's apparent feelings of
superiority and dismissiveness towards others that is so evident in anorexics
in general, "you're stupid good intentions are insufficient now" being a prime
example. Paul and Andrea are both extremely thin. I have a video of Melys
on "Garaj," a programme that used to be on S4C that I can pick up on my mum
and dad's TV with Carys looking like she'd snap too. I wouldn't like to say
one, or even more, of them were '1anorexic because I could be wrong, and I
sincerely hope I am because it's a horrible horrible thing and it ruins lives;
not just for the person but for !those who care about them. And if I were
to name the wrong person if another is/was they may get very offended and
consequently loose a lot of weight just to prove a point and I don't want
to be responsible for that ' (and this is all going by the remote possibility
that any of Melys may actually ever read this). But anyhow, if, and I speculate
if, Painfully Thin is written by Paul then why does it make a' difference?
T guess it's 'because anorexia in men is far less common than in women, and
the only figure I have to go on is Richey, and David Bowie too I guess but
I don't know much about him. It is unfair to set Paul up as the new Richey
so to speak which I know I kind of started to do based on stupid reasons like
his long sleeve shirts, his hair cut (like Richey circa Gold Against the Soul
complete with the single gold hoop earing) and skeletal body. It's not fair
on Richey and it's not fair on Paul, and I have stopped doing it. But the
idea of Paul writing this track gives the whole piece a different perspective
which is quite, well, thought provoking.
I think I just made a big deal of something that may be nothing.
Hatchepsut is another title, I have no idea about. I don't think it's
Welsh though. It is a very gentle song with none of the aggression of Achilles
Heel or Acid Queen, but is filled with the usual self doubt and disbelief,
("I'm no oil painting of a face" which isn't true as all of Melys are very
good looking, if not beautiful in some cases) Paul's vocals can also be heard
in this too which is nice because live he is pretty much inaudible except
in between songs.
