Stockholm-based electronic project Me & Melancholy returns with FEM, a deeply personal fifth album that refuses to stay in one emotional place. Across eleven tracks, Peter Ehrling moves between euphoric synthpop, industrial rhythms, post-punk tension and atmospheric melancholy, creating a record where celebration and loneliness can exist side by side.
The album opens brightly with “Dance with me,” driven by hard, deep bass, thumping beats and a pulsating synth wave that glimmers with a clean, glitzy sheen. Ehrling’s grainy, rich voice rises with an almost euphoric energy, giving the song a late-night dancefloor rush. Yet beneath all that brightness is a desire to stop overthinking and simply surrender to the moment.
That warmth soon freezes over. “Lost in you” brings a colder, more mechanical pulse, capturing the feeling of becoming so consumed by another person that devotion begins to erase the self. Elsewhere, “Broken Souls” searches for tenderness among people concealing their wounds. “Reputation” turns identity itself into something almost programmable, as labels begin to sound less like descriptions and more like commands.
Then comes “Squidso,” where glimmering music and deep bass surround a darker, stranger atmosphere. Ehrling sings emotionally about hiding in darkness and finding companionship in silence, making the track feel almost surreal.
The closing “Ghosts in the Mirror” is quieter emotionally but no less haunting. Its glassy music feels like crystal balls tingling against glass while thumping drums hold everything together. Ehrling’s husky voice carries loneliness, memory and regret as the past seems to gather around the person staring back.
Dedicated to Ehrling’s late father, FEM lets grief, love, anger, freedom and joy occupy the same room—and sounds more honest for it.
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Review by: Naomi Joan