Album Review: Me - Even The Odd Ones Out

You best be in a theatrical mood, folks, because they don't come much more flamboyantly theatrical than ME. In fact, their music – which you'll experience a little less than 50 minutes of on this record – seems to be the result of pre-dubstep Muse making sweet love to post-Sheer Heart Attack Queen while the gods of metal look on lecherously all drunk with lust and the kings of pop get themselves off in the corner. See? This shit is melodramatic as balls.

It's a revelation that hits mere seconds into the Melbourne quartet's debut full-length as Hoo Ha's blaring horns and stormy percussion give way to low-register staccato piano, handclaps and the vocals of Luke Ferris, sounding every bit the graduate from the Matt Bellamy Appreciation Society's School for Budding Showmen. Things only get more Broadway rock musical from here – operatic chorus vocals (Trails In The Sky, Working Life), '60s rock jangle (Rock And Roll Dandy), metal flourishes (All Along The Way) and gratuitous falsetto (Like A Fox, Carousel) abound, as does the liberal use of strings, all tied together with an air of straight-up pop ebullience.

As insane and overblown as this all sounds, it's so much fun it actually works. Most of the charm lies in the fact that there is absolutely no pretension poisoning this album. Far from concerning themselves with being anything before it was cool, ME have taken a genre that is well past the point of being cool everywhere but Europe and had an absolute blast with it anyway – and that's a really refreshing thing to be able to palpably hear on an album these days.