Melissa Mary Ahern - Kerosene (2025) [Hi-Res]

Melissa Mary Ahern’s childhood took her across the United States Of America. Only as an adult has she been able to put down roots. Currently calling New York her home. Releasing music with friends and associates, including Sufjan Stevens, for well over a decade, for the last few years Melissa has written and composed alone. Connecting with UK label, FatCat Records, Melissa has previously issued a trio of singles, and now has an album of material ready to go. Titled “Kerosene”, the set’s songs explore the loss of a loved one, a sibling, and her struggles with sobriety. Learning to see the world clean, with a new clarity, while memories of hurrahs, extended destructive benders, and hangovers are still constant companions. Shadows at her shoulder.

Melissa comes from a musical family. She remembers, “My mother sang, played the Irish fiddle, and often dragged me in front of her piano to sing whatever 100 year-old battle hymn she felt like practising.” It was through her older brothers, though, that she got hooked on songwriting. “They held their high school rock band rehearsals in our basement. I’d listen to the same Nirvana song played 1000+ times, but also hear the songs they were writing being worked out.”

The pieces on “Kerosene” are divided between those polished in professional studios and those captured on a mic in Melissa’s Manhattan bathroom. The latter she refers to as “Clean and dirty. Sweet and mean. Cruel and kind”, and explains that editing out the sound of the streets, sirens and alleycats was the hardest part. Melissa’s brother engineered some of the sessions upstate. Trumpeter Alex Toth, of Brooklyn band Rubblebucket, co-produced others. Lyrically the album acts almost as a diary. Turning Melissa’s experiences as she entered recovery in 2020 into poetry. Dealing with often overwhelming feelings that the drugs and alcohol had hidden.

Opener “Happy”, a previous single, possesses a big, rich, warm sound. Kinda retro, it echoes 1960s soul hits such as Barbara Lewis’ “Hello Stranger”. The words describe a search for independence. This could be from a lover, but is in fact from Melissa’s former self. Articulating her acceptance of who she is, faults and all, letting go of control, and, as the 12 Steps prescribe, submitting to a higher power. There are touches of Toth’s trumpet, classy keys and the drums deliver a slow funk, before the song fades to the delicate filigree of the acoustic guitar it was written on.

A couple of cuts share this vintage R&B vibe. “The Truth” also struts its stuff with the swing of an old 45. Toth’s backing vocals verging on doo-wop. Melissa says, “We wanted to turn him into a one-man Jordanaires”, inspired by the mid-western quartet’s sides with Pasty Cline. Harbouring heavenly harp glissando, and understated brass, the song’s upbeat arrangement cleverly conceals its blues. Just like an addict covering their ass. Lying to themselves and everyone around them. Melissa sings, “I’ll find a new town, ride out and get lost in the crowd”, but explains that “It was only when I stopped running, denying, that I was able to face things.” There’s no escape. “Wherever you go, there you are.”

“Taxi Ride”, too, is shaped from similar sonic cloth. However, its subject matter is the patriarchy, and how our male-dominated society and perceived pressured gender roles, can squash and squander dreams. Laidback, weeping 6-string and sympathetic piano serenading Melissa’s frustration. “I wanna go down in history. But how?”

“One Way Life” is far faster and rockier. A positive mantra that could easily have blasted from `80s AM radio. Its driving tempo is encouraged by slick finger clicks, hand claps and crunchy guitar riffs. Big and catchy - like post-Fleetwood Mac Stevie Nicks. According to Melissa, “There’s no dress rehearsal for this thing, and it’s as linear as a one-way road, so we might as well make the most of it.”

“Strawberries And Wine” also chops out some electric axe licks. A subterfuge of sweet harmonies and birdsong, it sarcastically surveys a party scene. Its protagonist watches from the sidelines, sober, removed, as a room full of people get drunk, and fall in love. Masking her hurt, while painfully accepting the role of outsider. Wondering if the good times are now all in the past.

With lines like, “I’m not anybody’s fool anymore”, the organ-led “Cry Wolf” on the surface seems to be taking a manipulative deceitful lover to task, but it’s actually aimed at crooked governments, media and corporations. Breathless and heavy with reverb, it’s concerned with the importance of thinking for yourself, and intended as a wake-up call to everyone listening.

The short spoken JFK tribute “Mel Moon Interlude” is a reference to Melissa’s Irish- American ancestry. “Your Mind” is a love song. Describing first flush’s obsessive rush. The feeling, the need, to discover everything about another. Desires, fears, the light and the shadows. In contrast “Time Machine” wants to “Go to the future where my heart’s not broken, where I’m not crying. ”Impatient with the process of healing, Melissa here evokes the rock ’n’ roll performed at David Lynch’s Twin Peaks diner, and a less spaced-out Julee Cruise. Spooky theremin sounds and all.

The long-player’s title track, “Kerosene”, is, however, its centrepiece, and undoubtedly the most intimate number. An incredible, powerful and beautiful ballad, a rhyme of unapologetic honesty, if you’ve ever been anywhere near recovery it might have you in tears. Poetically, it lays plain an urge that isn’t easily explained or contained. One that “comes in like a wave.” “When I give in to the pain, I pour on the kerosene”, the fuel a metaphor for Melissa’s alcoholism. “I wanted the fuzz guitar to sound like the savagery of addiction”, Melissa says, and the song’ll knock you sideways when the careful close mic’d picking suddenly erupts and roars. Distorted, its edges buzzing. Mimicking bursts of burning flame.

The closing “Oh Well” was written for Melissa’s brother, who she lost to cancer. It was his passing that put Melissa on a path to sobriety. Her remaining brother plays guitar. A reflection on coping with grief and the need to celebrate the departed, be grateful for their gifts, Melissa sings, “Wasn’t it nice while it lasted, didn’t it burn proud and bright? ” Gentle strumming and dancing electronica details, deep in the mix, painting pictures of loves, lovers passing like clouds in unpredictable skies.

The songs on “Kerosene” move backward and forward in a narrative where Melissa reconciles, untangles her old life from the new. Remembering bad habits, while striving for inner strength. Her sights set on a peace free of self-destructive self-loathing. Determined, and committed to never making the same mistakes again. The mood is still bruised, but way over the worst. Retreating, rebuilding, understanding that true love begins within.