I’m not what you’d call an avid MySpace user — I’ve never changed the background on my page from the default, and I log in mostly so that I can delete all the spam friend requests from porn webcam sites (My name is Charlise, and im just a fun-loving girl in a big world! i just bought a webcam and im luvvin’ gettin’ freaky on it! come check me out! www.youreabigfatloserwithnogirlfriend.com! and plz enjoy all the malware that comes up when u click on the “profile contains adult content” download! kthx!)
However, every once in a while, I swing by the MySpace Music page and listen to whatever album they’re previewing at the moment. Usually it’s pretty awful, but it’s also often entertaining, if you like that sort of thing. All of which is a long way of explaining why I’m reviewing Devils & Angels, the forthcoming sophomore release by the California four-piece Melee.
Melee play a sort of music the concept of which is fascinating to me. It’s polished, expertly produced pop-rock, aimed at a very specific audience: people who are too mature for Avril, too young for the Eagles or the Cars, and too independent for John Mayer — while at the same time uninterested in venturing much further afield than the Postal Service or “Chasing Cars.” It’s full of tight, shiny harmonies, rippling pianos, and sharp midrange guitars. Devils & Angels plays like an entire album in search of an episode of The O.C., and perhaps that’s the best bullet-point summary that I can give it.
There’s a sense in which that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s full of anthemic choruses and big hooks — “For a Lifetime” probably doesn’t sound right outside a stadium — and there are moments where the singer sounds a lot like the lately departed Brad Delp, who I always liked. I’m not offended or insulted by this album in any way, shape or form. It’s pleasant.
But it’s also resolutely unadventurous, and more than a little hollow. Melee do this well-enough, but it’s music by template, a template that the band rarely even hit the edges of, let alone go outside. Frankly, I don’t think they want to take any risks, and though I suppose it’s hard to penalize someone for that, I can’t very well reward them for it either.
When I was in college, taking a Shakespeare class, I once received a paper back with a lower grade than I had hoped for. At the end of it, my professor had written, “What you have done, you have done almost perfectly. What you have omitted cries out for your attention.” Perhaps analogously, as far as Melee go, they’ve done as well as is probably possible, but the path they’ve chosen is both so narrow and so well-traveled that it’s a little disappointing to find yet another band on it.
Release date: April 3, 2007
Label: Warner Brothers
Rating: I’m kind of waffling between a 5 and a 6/10
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