Melenas - Melenas (2021)

Hailing from Spain, Melenas undertake the combination of jangle pop melodicism and garage rock energy which, whether played on guitars or keyboards, is imbued with a joyful, light feeling. It's clever, energetic pop music with plenty of spirit and no small amount of reverb. The quartet's first two albums, 2016's self-titled debut and 2020's Dias Raros, are guitar-heavy and sweetly punky; they ditched strings for keys and machines on 2023's Ahora with the result pitched somewhere between OMD and Stereolab.
Hailing from Pamplona in Northern Spain, Melenas features Oihana Herrera on guitar and vocals, María Zubiaur on keyboards, Leire Zabala on bass and vocals, and Laura Torre on drums. The four were serious music fans who met when they were regular patrons at the Nebula Bar, a venue regularly frequented by musicians. Fittingly, it's also where they played their first gig, in October 2016, to celebrate Zubiaur's birthday. As the group continued to hone their sound and gain experience, they began playing regularly in Spain, soon headlining clubs and appearing at music festivals such as Eurosonic and Primavera Sound. It didn't take long for them to record an album and Melenas was issued by trio of local labels - El Nebula, Elsa, and Snap! Clap! -- in 2017. The group continued to play a steady stream of live shows, including a 2018 trip to the SXSW festival, and in 2019 released the "Ya No Me Importa Si Tu Me Quieres" single. Trouble in Mind Records signed the group up for the release of their second album, 2020's Dias Raros. It added some songwriting sophistication and rhythmic punch to their sound, fully sounding like the garage rock band Flying Nun never signed. Seeing how the album was release just as the global COVID-19 pandemic was taking off, the band were unable to tour. Instead, they spent time developing a new approach based around vintage synthesizers, Motorik rhythms, and synth pop shimmer. The first song released with this new approach was a the 2021 single "Osa Polar," a cover of Grauzone's 1981 song "Eisbaer." Their third album Ahora was released by Trouble in Mind in late 2023 and layered their new key-oriented sound with the occasional guitar strum and plenty of vocal harmonies.