“FEM.” never stays in one place for long. It can make you want to dance, then leave you sitting with a feeling you were trying not to think about.
There is a lot to like about FEM., the fifth album from Stockholm artist Peter Ehrling, who makes music as Me & Melancholy. The first thing that stood out to me is how much the record changes its mood without losing its identity. It does not feel like every song was made to fit the same formula. “Dance with me” gets things moving straight away. The synths are bright and the rhythm has that old-school dance feel that makes you want to get up and move. It is probably the most carefree song here, although there is still a little uncertainty underneath it. It sounds like someone trying to forget their problems for a few hours. Then “Lost in you” comes along and changes the temperature completely. The bass is heavier and the drums feel more mechanical. The song deals with becoming so wrapped up in another person that you start losing sight of yourself. It is one of those moments where the music and the subject seem to understand each other. “Broken Souls” slows things down emotionally. There is something vulnerable about the title alone, and the song seems to look at people who have been hurt but have learned to hide it. It is not all sadness, though. There is some tenderness in there. “All of You” keeps that personal feeling going. It sounds like wanting someone to open up when they have already built a wall around themselves. You can feel the distance between two people.
Then comes “Reputation,” which is one of the more interesting ideas on the album. It deals with the labels other people put on us. Aggressive. Vulnerable. Difficult. Incompatible. After hearing those words repeated, they start to sound less like descriptions and more like things being programmed into someone’s head. “Squidso” takes the album somewhere darker and stranger. There is a slightly unsettling feeling around it, almost like stepping into a room where something feels wrong but you cannot quite explain why. “The One I Am” pushes back against that. It has a sense of refusing to let someone else’s opinion become your identity. There is a quiet strength to it. By the time we get to “All Love Is Gone,” things become much heavier. This is about what happens when love falls apart and you are left with the things that were said, the promises that were made and everything that cannot be taken back. “Just Like the Sun” gives the album some warmth again. It feels lighter without suddenly pretending everything is fine. That matters because FEM. never really chooses between happiness and sadness. Both are allowed to exist.
Then there is “No Permission.” I like the attitude here. The repeated idea of not needing permission to speak, create, dream or love feels simple, but it works. Sometimes you need someone to remind you of something that should have been obvious in the first place. The closing track, “Ghosts in the Mirror,” is probably where the album feels most reflective. Memory and regret come back into the picture. The title says a lot. You can move forward and still carry pieces of the past with you. Knowing that Peter wrote this album around the loss of his father makes the whole record hit differently. He has said that he originally planned to release it earlier, but after his father’s death, the timing no longer felt right. During the summer, he wrote “Lost in you,” and that darker sound ended up changing the direction of the album. You can hear that change.And maybe that is why FEM. feels so honest. It was not forced into one mood. Peter followed the songs where they wanted to go. Sometimes that meant bright synthpop. Sometimes it meant cold electronics, sadness, anger or something much harder to describe. That makes this fifth album feel less like a carefully packaged electronic record and more like a snapshot of a complicated period in someone’s life.
Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, website,
English