Swedish new wave and synthpop act Me & Melancholy is back with their new full-lenght album Open Your Eyes, following a string of successful singles and EPs. Over the past releases, Stockholm-based musician and producer Peter Ehrling came up with a darkwave sound that is filled with rich and textured production that fluctuates alongside pop vocal melodies, creating a unique sound that is as eerie as it is beautiful.
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On his brand-new album Open Your Eyes, Me & Melancholy’s fourth full collection of original material, the artist goes for the early 80s synthpop more heavily than ever before. Mashing together adventurous synths with urgent drum machines, he crafts a time machine-like sound that instantly transports you to another time when all of this felt like a novelty.
Nothing about the soundscapes explored by Peter sounds particularly innovative or groundbreaking; his influences are well-established, and he rarely strays away from them as Me & Melancholy. But that is pretty much what makes this project utterly alluring: his ability to navigate through well-known waters and still come up with refreshing and thrilling new perspectives. Peter’s outlook on the New Wave genre is one of admiration and fascination, working his hardest to recreate the same feelings evoked by the likes of The Human League and Depeche Mode. As he perfectly blends delicious pop hooks with dark synthpop stylings, he might as well just be called successful on his mission.
According to Peter himself, Open Your Eyes is the result of hard work that dates back to May 2024, featuring some tracks that were also finished but left out of his last album, Illusio Veri, but finally found their home. Dealing heavily with introspective themes that range from healing to self-forgiveness to longing and grief, Peter writes with gripping self-realisation and enchantment.
When he begs for the titular “One Last Kiss”, it feels like a matter of life or death – because, at the time, it is. The gorgeous cinematic pacing of the album, highlighted by tracks like “There Is a Whisper in the Wing” and “Naive”, feels exhilarating and hedonistic, carefully delivering sounds that feel both grounded in reality at the same time that let you fly and soar through the skies.
His latest full-length installment also comes shortly after a series of covers coming from the likes of Bloc Party and The Cure, as well as Pavement and Radiohead. Such a wide variety of influences certainly contributed to the overall feelings of his original material, and how celebratory it feels.
Open Your Eyes is a compelling journey towards the epicentre of a whole decades-long movement, carefully crafting tracks that feel impressive and jaw-dropping in their anachronism. Open Your Eyes stands out as one of Peter’s most upbeat releases, as if channelling Speak & Spell instead of Violator, and finding himself as a riveting voice in new wave.
Open Your Eyes may sound catchier and more upbeat than some of Peter’s early releases, but it still unravels itself as a complex body of work made up of a patchwork of intricately woven influences. Driven by atmospheric melodies and an intoxicating sense of self-worth, Peter himself described the album as a collection of songs that contain what he personally likes to hear. “I have cared 0% of what “you have to do” and 100% what I personally like. This makes it in my eyes Me & Melancholy’s best album by far and I could easily release every track on this album as a single”, he concludes.
And he couldn’t be righter; out of all Me & Melancholy’s full lengths, this is the one that feels the most hair-raising and spontaneous. Peter navigates through his influences with confidence and grace, taking whatever works and tossing aside what doesn’t with equal certainty.
Open Your Eyes truly is his best project to date, a courageous venture into old sounds determined to make every single one of them feel as bold and tenacious as when they were first introduced. It follows an enchanting and self-reliant narrative of bravery and vulnerability in its lyrics as well as in the music that surrounds it. Peter is walking down a familiar lane of darkness, but this time around he holds a torchlight to lead the way.
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Dealing heavily with introspective themes that range from healing to self-forgiveness to longing and grief, Peter AKA Me & Melancholy writes with gripping self-realisation and enchantment.
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On Bandcampmemelancholy.bandcamp.com/album/open-y…
— Jpgchief (@jpgchief.bsky.social) 31 de marzo de 2025, 12:15
@jpgchief 🚨#NewMusic🚨 🛑#ListenNow🛑 🔥#NewAlbum🔥 New Album "Open Your Eyes" by Me & Melancholy in this post “In the blink of an eye” @Jpgchief @Jpgchief @Jpgchief "Open Your Eyes" is a compelling journey towards the epicentre of a whole decades-long movement, carefully crafting tracks that feel impressive and jaw-dropping in their anachronism. ⭐STREAM / ORDER NOW⭐ #FreshSingles #IndieOnly #UnknownButEssentials #BLOGLT1KF #LT1KF https://lessthan1000followers.com/2025/03/31/me-melancholy-walks-through-familiar-paths-with-a-brand-new-perspective-on-recent-album-open-your-eyes/ #CapCut ♬ original sound – Jpgchief
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the center didn’t hold