High school has a peculiar talent for making every heartbreak feel like the end of the world. On her debut EP Miss Melancholy, Dallas pop artist and songwriter Analiese turns that heightened teenage reality into a glossy, emotionally candid soundtrack of crushes, insecurity, friendship and the awkward business of figuring out who you are. Across seven tracks, she captures adolescence not as a distant memory polished by nostalgia, but as something messy, dramatic and painfully immediate.
The title track, “Miss Melancholy,” is especially good at inhabiting that feeling. It opens with melancholic, swelling strings that seem to writhe with a slow thawing of emotion, immediately giving the song a cinematic ache beneath its pop surface. Analiese’s delicate voice then comes right up against the microphone, where she sings softly, realistically and almost observationally. She is the girl watching from the sidelines as the boy she likes ends up with the prom queen—the quintessential mean girl who seems to have the whole school orbiting around her. Everyone fawns over the plastic perfection, while Analiese’s narrator feels herself fading into the background, camouflaged against a world that seems designed for someone else.
The production is immersive that helps not overwhelming the vulnerability at its center. Steady tapping beats keep the song moving while a deep bassline seems to dig straight into the bones, giving the melancholy a physical weight. It feels less like a grand teenage tragedy than that quiet, sinking realization of being overlooked while everyone else appears to belong.
With its combination of infectious pop instincts and unguarded storytelling, Miss Melancholy understands exactly why adolescence can feel so enormous. Check out the EP, because it gives those unrequited feelings somewhere to live—and, hopefully, something to scream along to on the drive home.
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Review by: Naomi Joan