Black Leather Fantasy – MELØ (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Following on from last year’s Mysteria, MELØ is back with future-pop smash Black Leather Fantasy to continue his quest to get to the top of the charts. With one foot in futuristic and cutting edge pop and the other in the nostalgic work of New Romantics, it is a dark and delicious affair, even more so when you factor in the video which accompanies the track.

Musically it grooves along at a slow and sultry pace and is seductive in its style as it is sassy in its delivery. It revels in the darkness of the alternative world but couples that with the infectiousness of the clubland fringes.

Synth-pop is making a bit of a resurgence these days, the result of new technologies giving access to digital sound palettes that are perfect for the understatement and seductive grooves that shape the modern pop world as well as modern pop creators taking leaves out of those early post-punk pioneers, whether they are doing so consciously or otherwise.

But many bands heading down such routes seem to be overly 80’s fixated to the point where they all sound as if they are vying to be included in the soundtrack of a proposed film of Ready Player Two. But not MELØ, despite certain nods to poised-pop-past, this is nothing if not totally of the now. Not only the sound of today but ready to spring into, and even help create, the sound of what’s to come. Black Leather Fantasy is the sound of pop to come, it just happens to be here now. Embrace it, love it, learn from it and be the first to taste the future right here, right now.