Album review: Deep Dark Savage Heart by Melody Pool

When Melody Pool released her debut album, The Hurting Scene, in 2013 it felt like a new seam of gold had been discovered in the hills of the Hunter Valley. Hailing from the small town of Kurri Kurri, Pool had honed her talent young and produced a record of incredible beauty and maturity.

She doesn’t live in Kurri Kurri any more, but Pool’s musical output is not, apparently, defined by where she lives because she has produced a second album that has obvious roots in The Hurting Scene yet is quite different – and just as beautiful.

The direct descendants of Deep Dark Savage Heart seem to be the lines ‘What a waste I am/What a waste I am indeed’ from the second song of The Hurting Scene, ‘Open Book’. The lines are incongruous in that song, which otherwise sounds poignantly evocative. The lineage is picked up in 'Black Dog', the fifth song of the new album, which is the centrepiece of this extraordinary, compelling piece of work; it’s there in the line ‘Nobody sees what I do to me’. ‘Black Dog’ is dramatic where ‘Open Book’ almost wants to hide from itself, but the development signals that Pool is ready, finally, to accept what is obvious: she is a major talent, and she should get dramatic about herself. She should stand on pedestals and command attention; she should trust that what she is offering is valuable and rare.

If The Hurting Scene was a mature effort from a young woman, Deep Dark Savage Heart is a sophisticated production from a proper grown-up. Pool’s voice is deeper and richer than it was on the first album, although no less capable of the sweetnesses that were evident on that album.

I wrote of the The Hurting Scene that it made me almost immediately want to lie down and wonder what on earth had just happened. Deep Dark Savage Heart had the same impact. I’ve still never recovered from the first album, I don’t expect to recover from the second, and that’s the privilege of living in a world that produces an artist like this. Melody Pool is a gift. 

Deep Dark Savage Heart is out now through Mushroom.

melodypool.com.au

Album review: The Hurting Scene by Melody Pool

From time to time I'll hear an album that from almost the first note makes me want to lie down weeping with joy that I've heard it - or it makes me feel like my head is going to explode from trying to work out what's going on, because it's all so good, and from trying to take it all in on that first listening, temporarily forgetting that I can listen to it again (and again and again).

As you may have guessed from that introduction, that's how I feel about The Hurting Scene, the new album from Melody Pool, who hails from the Hunter region of New South Wales. This is a sophisticated collection of exquisitely played and produced songs that launch themselves straight at the listener's heart - well before the head gets involved - and strike definitively. I almost swooned during the first song, and kept swooning throughout. 

There is a balance of rolling and rambunctious with wistful and contemplative, struck from the first two tracks, 'The Hurting Scene' and 'Open Book'. There are stories here and thanks to Melody's voice - which is sweet but not syrupy, clean edged and clear - they are all heartbreaking. Hers is the voice of someone who should be years older - Pool is 21 - because it is so assured and knowing and sometimes melancholy. It is a voice that makes you want to crawl inside the songs and stay there as you listen to tales of travel and woe and self-reflection, time slipping past and love slipping away that mark Pool as an accomplished songwriter as much as she is a gifted singer. 

I ordered Melody's album (old-school CD) from her website - you can too at www.melodypool.com.au. It's also available on iTunes.