Melody's Echo Chamber Bon Voyage

It's been awhile but since Melody Echo Chamber's debut in 2012 since then she's fallen out with its producer Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) and had a serious but unspecified accident which left her hospitalised. On the early sections of opener 'Cross My Heart' it sounds that nothing has really changed. It is gorgeous, gallic pop with a beautiful melody and stunning arrangements. That's all before the track goes off at an inexplicable tangent half way through taking in R & B, funk, an enormous flute solo, a bit of Tame Impala before thankfully, mercifully it ends. 

More concise is 'Breathe In Breathe Out' which is more of the dreamy shoegaze as found on her debut. Her breathy vocals swirl over some pretty lovely guitar chords. Like 'Cross My Heart' it spends an awful lot of time chasing it's own tail though and 'Desert Horse' is also an utter shambles. First up: A warning to anyone over 30: it contains autotune. It's like Bon Iver has got a hold of it and applied all his usual borderline offensive sounds to it. So far, so overworked.

Overleaf there's a gorgeous thing called 'Quand Lesc Larmes D'un Ange Font Danser La Neige' which is a rather brilliant slab of psych pop with rolling drums and a likeable sort of mix of acoustic guitars and fuzz bass  - strange spoken word interlude excepted - it's pretty good and indicates what the album could/should have been. 

It's a record with hints of absolute brilliance but it's also way over indulgent and at times an endurance test for the listener. It tries hard to marry a lot of disparate things... some which work, many which don't. An overthought, overwrought album though not uninteresting.