Nashville-based singer-songwriter Melanie MacLaren confronts the realities of life – and death – on her 4^th solo EP, Bloodlust.

Release Date:  24^th October 2024

Label: Tone Tree Music

Formats: Digital

ARE YOU READY FOR REALITY?

Are you ready for the truth?  Are you ready for reality?  If so, then I recommend that you wrap your ears around Bloodlust, the new EP from Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Melanie MacLaren.  Melanie is proud to describe herself as a ‘realist’ and the four songs on Bloodlust are solid testament to that appraisal, as she uses her articulate, engaging songs to express emotions sparked by a period of her life that was marred by grief, loss and illness.

However, if you’re looking for self-pity, then you’ve come to the wrong shop.  The songs on Bloodlust are angry, observational and thought-provoking; they’re also melodic, anthemic and surprisingly upbeat – and not without moments of bawdy humour, either.  But there’s not an ounce of remorse or regret to be found anywhere.  There’s an easy country feel to much of Bloodlust and the influence of performers like Gillian Welch and, particularly, Lucinda Williams is clearly evident.  One thing’s for sure; these are songs of REAL quality.

GATHERING STEAM

Melanie MacLaren’s career has been gathering steam for quite some time now.  Bloodlust is her 4^th solo EP and follows hot on the heels of her previous offering, Songs Are Ghosts, released earlier this year.  In 2023, she headlined her first US tour, a venture that took in such prestigious venues as New York’s Mercury Lounge and Bowery Electric and, at the start of this year, she had the pleasure of playing to sellout houses when she opened for Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr on his solo tour.

It’s the EP’s title track that gets Bloodlust underway and, from the outset, I’m struck by the determination and sweet sincerity in Melanie’s voice.  She sounds like either a tenderized Lucinda Williams or an accessible Joan Baez as she informs us: “Bloodlust is like a river – all things must wither; you can’t stop a killer, everybody knows.”  The pedal steel provides an anchor to Melanie’s country roots but the fuzzy guitar tells another tale altogether.

If it’s possible for a ballad to soar gently, then that’s exactly what happens on Get It Back.  There’s some strident acoustic guitar and more lilting pedal steel as Melanie delivers lyrics that bemoan a loss of innocence – but with a resigned air of acceptance that gives the song a vibrant, optimistic quality.

SPACE DOG

The second of two singles to have previewed the EP, Laika, is perhaps, my pick of the bunch – although it’s a close-run thing, as every song on Bloodlust is a good ‘un.  The song was inspired by the treatment suffered by Laika, the Moscow stray mongrel dog that was captured and sent into orbit on the Sputnik 2 spacecraft in 1957.  It was a one-way trip for Laika – she would die in space – and Melanie’s disgust at this disregard for life brought to mind other examples of the inhuman and exploitative behaviour of which our species can seem inexhaustively capable. 

Laika is a quiet, gentle, song with sparkly fingerpicked guitar providing the only necessary accompaniment to Melanie’s intimate, crystal clear vocal and, with lines like: “If you’re gonna use me, just tell me so.  If you’re gonna kill me, don’t make it slow.  The world looks different out here alone, in the dark and cold,” Melanie shows us exactly where her revulsion at Laika’s fate led her.  Laika is a truly excellent song.

And, before you have time to catch your breath, Melanie serves up another corker.  A relaxed country-flavoured song, Heaven Is was the EP’s lead single and it’s another lyrical gem.  Melanie uses the song to examine her own religious commitment, whilst acknowledging that heaven exists regardless, whether that’s in the form of “…the place where dead girls go to die” or whether it takes on a more earthly, accessible form of “sipping beer in a folding chair,” “…a paid vacation,” a memory of having your hair combed by your mother or, most shockingly hilariously: “… a hot dog when you’re drunk as f*ck” (!)

Bloodlust is an excellent EP and Melanie MacLaren is one hell of a songwriter.  And she knows how to deliver her songs, too.

Listen to Laika – the latest single to be taken from Bloodlust – here:

Melanie Maclaren online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / YouTube / Bandcamp / Spotify

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