MELTS – “Echoes” Video

Molly Keane

MELTS – “Echoes” Video

Molly Keane

Formed in 2017, MELTS are one of the names popping up in a small Dublin scene of bands offering their own interpretations of the post-punk canon. Perhaps appropriately considering that MELTS is made up of ex-members from other bands around town, you can hear a few different sounds colliding in their music. They bill themselves as psych-rock, and there is certainly a dreamy texture to their early singles. But aesthetically you can also easily hear post-punk, krautrock, new wave, and various eras of Brit-rock intertwining.

MELTS are still in the earlier phases of their career. They released one official single, “Skyward,” last year, and subsequently wound up opening for bands like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever and Fontaines D.C., their countrymen and a recent Stereogum Band To Watch. “Skyward” was a promising introduction, a nervy and anxious song that kept building and building until frontman Eoin Kenny called out the chorus as if lost in the distance, trying to cut through all the rising noise. They followed it with the B-side “In Person,” a chugging reverie that felt reminiscent of Echo & The Bunnymen’s “A Promise.” They’re planning an EP and some more singles through this spring. And today, we get to hear “Echoes,” the first of those and the band’s second official single overall.

“Echoes” was inspired by the former lives of MELTS’ band members, specifically the acrimonious split of Kenny’s former band and the process of reckoning with the fallout and the fractured relationships. Coming with a video directed by Plainview that features the band performing with lightly trippy effects draped over them, “Echoes” gets right at that fusion of psychedelia and new wave in MELTS’ sound. It partially recalls something like the aesthetic the Horrors established on Primary Colours and Skying — distinctly brooding, yet striving to reach beyond that, seeking the vibrance in the outside world. Check it out below.

“Echoes” is out 2/8.

more from New Music