The second
Melody's Echo Chamber album,
Bon Voyage, was a tour de force of intense psychedelic pop underpinned by dramatic shifts in tone and tempo, unhinged vocals, and an endless supply of surprises. It was borne during a turbulent time in
Melody Prochet's life; it felt like enough of a chapter-closing event that after its release she turned her back on music for years. When she was ready to embrace it, her cohorts from
Bon Voyage --
Reine Fisk of
Dungen and
the Amazing's
Fredrik Swahn -- were ready to join up again. Working together as in the past, they craft something equally as impressive, immersive, and powerful on
Emotional Eternal. Written from a place of warmth and peace, the album is comforting and pure, and listening to it is akin to wringing out a dirty, depressed soul and washing it in pure sunshine.
Prochet's voice soars across the mix in clear tones that never veer off course over basslines that bubble like cool mountain brooks, guitars that chime, and strings that hum like a celestial choir. The trio mix in some new sounds, like the Turkish psych accents on "Pyramids in the Clouds," and smooth off the rough edges of
Bon Voyage to uncover a sound that's as sweeping and soft as
Air at their calmest, while still letting loads of real emotion bleed through.
Prochet's feelings are more inviting this time around, but they are still very strong and it's near impossible to make it through most of the songs without stopping whatever one might be doing to really listen to what she's saying with the combination of words, sound, and melody. It's a heady mixture of the three and when they all combine at a high level, like on the utterly beautiful "Personal Message" or the album-closing heart-tuggingly happy "Alma the Voyage," it's hard not to be swept away. It's a very different kind of album that comes from a different artistic impulse, and it's to
Prochet's credit that she can transmit joy as impressively as she can despair.
Bon Voyage was a kind of disjointed, disconnected masterpiece,
Emotional Eternal is the flipside of the coin. Unified by acceptance and warmth, sung with wide-eyed, deep-down happiness, and played with a rich softness, it's a thing of beauty and that's forever. ~ Tim Sendra