GENRE; Rock
RELEASE DATE; 5 December, 2025
RATING; 3/5
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Melody’s Echo Chamber’s Unclouded unfolds like a sunlit fog—a record that refines Melody Prochet’s long-running love affair with dreamy psychedelia while nudging her toward clearer, more pastoral spaces. Across twelve songs she trades some of the woozy, hall-of-mirrors production of earlier records for warmer orchestration: swooping strings, gentle xylophones, and a velvet rhythm section that give songs room to breathe. The title, borrowed from a Hayao Miyazaki quote about seeing “with eyes unclouded by hate,” frames the album’s calmer, unburdened mood.
Co-produced with Sven Wunder and bolstered by collaborators including Malcolm Catto, Reine Fiske and a closing cameo from El Michels Affair on “Daisy,” Unclouded collects Prochet’s strengths—gauzy vocals, chiming guitars, and a knack for fragile melodies—into cohesive, cinematic arrangements.
Lead single “In the Stars” and opener “The House That Doesn’t Exist” showcase the record’s pastoral sweep: the former’s luminous chorus and the latter’s ascending strings feel designed to dissolve into late-afternoon light. Other cuts like “Memory’s Underground,” “Eyes Closed” and “Broken Roses” layer kraut-tinged motorik pulses under baroque touches, suggesting a wider palette than simple dream-pop.
That breadth is one of the album’s virtues: string charts and the careful use of percussion broaden Prochet’s sound while preserving the intimate quality of her voice. At times the record’s homogenous haze blunts the impact of individual hooks—a critique several reviewers have made—yet its rewards are cumulative: small melodic gifts and textural turns that reveal themselves across repeated listens.
Unclouded doesn’t reinvent Melody’s Echo Chamber so much as clarify it: it’s less about fireworks than about repairing and polishing the play of light on familiar surfaces. For listeners who favour mood, texture and gentle revelation over instant singles, this album will feel like coming up for air in a very beautiful place.
