Mellonta Tauta - Rainbow Melodies

Mellonta Tauta is a trio that has seen silence since for nearly two decades since the nineties. And, finally, the original bandmates have come back together to return to the feeling of what once was. And, well, everything is much more lighthearted and optimistic this time around, as even the title of the album, Rainbow Melodies, suggests that. Everyone likes a rainbow, unless you're an anti-gay activist. Then you can't stand the sight of that particular formation of nature.

Nonetheless, the album is decent, and has me moving, and definitely sounds like it belongs in the late eighties and early nineties, which is awesome because, for some reason, I've been in a rather eighties mood. So, this album is perfect to chill down to and just take in wholly. I have no problem doing that at all, but let's get started with music talk.

Love is Happiness kicks off the album, and is extremely mellow, and puts me right into that eighties mood. I could see someone taking a ride down to Miami as the sun sets, with nothing but the wind and the sunlight so much as brushing up against them. In other words, this song was awesome. My only complaint would be that the vocals sometimes become a little high pitched for me, and since there really isn't any singing going on, just humming, it can get quite annoying.

I feel as if the next song, Twenty Years Later, should act as a heart wrencher for the bandmates. I mean, after all, it's like a twenty year reunion song, with a nice little acoustic guitar strumming along with the beat. It's still very mellow, and the vocals fix themselves right up, creating a beautiful fascination. Sunset Breeze sounds like it would fit very well as the title track to a Western movie set within a tropical environment, and has a sort of ambient tone to it.

Raining House reminded me of a different version of Twenty Years Later, just with using an electrical guitar, therefore I found it to be a bit boring. Travel to the End completely slowed things down, and has a saxophone in it at two different occasions, giving a jazz like vibe. Live Here Forever continues on with the slowness, but is an otherwise unremarkable song.

Following after is a one minute song titled Moonlight Melodies. This was another ambient like song, and I was really disappointed at it's length; it was very charming, and I wanted more than the seventy three second run gave me. After came Paris Noir, which was interesting, for it did have that noir vibe around it via the seventies detective tale, but also had French lyrics in it. It was interesting, but not the best song on the album.

Then came along another short track, Half-Full Glass, which shows off the positive energy ebbed in the album. After all, a pessimist would've titled the track, "Half-Empty Glass". It was an electronic song that had a never ceasing pattern, and I was glad it ended. And then came along the title track of the album, Rainbow Melodies. It's like everything that's been worked in on the album came through with an effort in this song, and was a fun listen to.

I couldn't really point out much new within Mistery Dream nor Ice Star, except maybe that the vocals in Ice Star took a deeper tone. Pampa Soul was another shorter track, focusing on the piano, but it didn't really do much for myself. And, finally, comes along the finale of the album, Sunrise Melodies, also short in it's nature, just shy of a minute. It has amazing violin work throughout, followed by electronics that sound like a goodbye tune. And it was awesome, but ended abruptly.

So, we do have a fairly good album here. I really enjoyed listening full through it, as a lot of ideas were presented here and most were thought through, as would be expected after twenty years of no music. I can easily say that there was a lot of heart put into this album, and it was released not for audiences, but for the members of Mellonta Tauta themselves. And, this is what I find most appealing about the album. The fact that these guys don't care what their listeners want, but that they care for what they want. This was a personal project, and it's not flawless, but it certainly isn't garbage, and holds a nice little place in my mind as an album worth listening to. Sep 05 2013