‘Youthless’ is a record that does it best to present sadness and vulnerability in as relatable and empathic a fashion as you can envision. The bedroom pop record from London based singer song writer Melanie Pierce is innately filled with nostalgia and wistfulness, a dreamy collection of five tracks that vary in composition but stay consistent in tonality. She hopes to continue to break mental health stigmas by also sharing her music through artistic mediums like yourselves. From the monotone and dreary but dreamy ‘Counting Sheep’ to the titular closing piece, she stays true to sharing an authentic version of herself in changing styles.
With a wide range of artists like Wolf Alice, Lorde, Hayley Williams, Daniel Caesar, Wallows and the 1975 inspiring her sound, Melanie’s artistry separates herself in her narrative and her topicality. Delving into mental health, the stigma around it, and painful introspection, she’s able to lift elements of this wavy indie sound to paint over the raw emotion of her song writing. Each track is meant to give the listener an outlet to their own emotion, allowing them to feel the vulnerability that she’s so readily able to impart onto them. Through the exploration of genre-fluidity, Melanie’s desire with the EP was to create a collection of tracks wherein at least one would have a listener find something to relate to and
It’s on the title track that Melanie is able to really show her talent off to her fullest. The work on the keys, her strangely melancholic but quirky vocal delivery, and the meandering progression are just the right kind of offbeat indie pop to bask in. When the song hits a drop, and she says ‘and they told me to smile a little’, you really start to understand where she’s coming from as it starts to hit close to home for you as well. The chorus is strangely addictive, a bit wandering in its tone but in a way that has you more intrigued than perplexed. I can’t quite place what this album makes me feel because it’s a whole slew of things that I feel was hidden underneath. Maybe, just maybe, it can uncover the same for you as well.