MELROSE

The good news (and in fact the only real reason for getting this album) is the impressive opening track 'Three Bikes In The Sky',a wonderful soaring peice with guitars to the fore.After that it's fairly uninspired stuff with lots of unimaginative sequencing and 'songs' that are listenable but a long way from essential.

Here goes TD, attacking another decade. I just hope that it will be better than the way they closed the eighties ("Lily On The Beach"). It was not a friendly way to say goodbye to this period actually?

I tend to be indulgent for TD, and the first two tracks from this album are quite good to be honest. Very good sax play for the opener and title track, and some beautiful ambient moments peppered with great electric guitar from the Froese gang to make a highlight of "Three Bikes In The Sky".

This album is also longer than usual (almost an hour). And even if we are not close from the ethereal of let's say "Desert Green", a track as "Dolls In The Shadow" holds sufficient ambient keys to please my old ears.

I would have wished some more "tribal" sounds during "Yucatán" but instead, some programmed percussions aren't really working well but this is compensated by an emotional guitar break. Not too bad at all shall I say. So far, so good?

Most of the compositions sound fresh and are well crafted. Much better than the previous "Lily" which almost brought me in despair. The simplistic and repetitive "Electric Lion" is OK while you are on the meditating side of things. But this fully new age oriented track is a good antidote to stress, believe me. This album flows nicely from one track to the following without any mistakes so far. The "lion" even roars at mid-time in the form of another very good guitar part.

Some more upbeat at times "Rolling Down Cahuenga" (but with no harm even if this is not the highlight from "Melrose") and somewhat electro-pop as well but mixed with heavenly keys ("Art Of Vision") are available.

The longest rack for this album (but short in terms of TD epic) is "Desert Train" which is a good summary of what one can obtain from this album: synthetic beats, computerized drumming BUT great keyboards moments for sure.

"Melrose" is a diversified album that is quite pleasant to listen to. Not a masterpiece of course but yet a pretty decent work. The closing "Cool At Heart" is again all tact and passion. A wonderful way to say goodbye.

This work is quite a (good) surprise after having experienced the worse. A fine entry into the nineties by all means and a quite neglected album. Three stars (seven out of ten for sure).

To be fair, it should be noted that at the time of this review, I own a grand total of 4 or 5 Tangerine Dream albums from the 90s onwards (I do not own anything from the 2000s yet either). And of those few albums, this is the only 90s one I've heard so far that has done anything to excite me in a really big way. Yes, there are definitely plenty of clichés found in this album left over from some of the 80s Tangerine Dream work, including lots of that nice 80s pop-synth sound most proggers just love to death, but I think most of the clichés work wonders here. But what really does wonders for me is the saxophone. I think it adds a unique sound not really found in the music of Tangerine Dream. And it kind of has a sensual feeling to it too, in that I could probably try using this on the girl I currently have a crush on and it would work in positive ways, if you get what I mean. The title track and Desert Train are the two that stick out the most to me, although that may be partially due to the saxophone. Did I mention I like the saxophone a lot on here? But seriously though, there are a lot of great atmospheres here, and yet there is still an almost dance-able quality to the sound of Melrose.

This isn't the best TD album by any means, but it is certainly a darn good one. I could really give this either 3 or 4 stars, but for most TD fans, this is one of the few 90s albums that definitely belongs in your collection, so I will rank it 4 stars.

This album is considered by the band as a milestone. If you look at the TD website, the band's history mentions the "Melrose years". Where is the difference? First of all this is not a soundtrack and we are no longer in the 80s. With this album Tangerine Dream becomes a sort of family affair, with Jerome Froese joining his father and Paul Haslinger. Secondly, the high number of soundtracks, which usually have the purpose of commenting images has made the band's sound slide smoothly to newage atmospheres and the title track with its sax is an example. A very good track, anyway.

There are highlights like "Three Bikes In The Sky" but at this point of their history Tangerine Dreams are reluctant in releasing 20 minutes long tracks as in the past. Ten years before they would have probably tied together all those 5 minutes instrumentals, but I think that at a certain point they have realised that separating the tracks is more effective if you look for sales and radio passages. In some moments, "Yucatan" is one of them, I hear similarities with the kind of electronic works released by Peter Bardens in the 80s, "Seen One Earth" in particular. However, Yucatan is one of the album's highlights Other things, like the following track "Electric Lion" are very similar to Micheal Manring's Wyndham Hill releases, so newage.

The real album's highlight is "Desert Train", probably because it's the longest track and contains track of the good old days, with the main theme fo the track which changes several time without being too circular and showing a bit more of composing effort. I would have preferred a better closer instead of the mellow "Cool At Heart" which is mellow also in the title.

Not a bad album, promising of what the 90s would have been for TD, but very far from their masterpieces.

Simply my least favorite studio album of TANGERINE DREAM of the 20th century. Although not brilliant, the previous releases had a few nice and original tracks. Here, even after several listens, I cannot find one interesting moment. The compositions sound like flat, uninspired new-age music. "Melrose" provides no hypnotic sequenced passages, nor pretty melodies as in "Underwater Sunlight". Furthermore, the sound is very dated.

This record marks the end and the limit of the band's more or less inspired late 80's period. Last with Paul Haslinger, first with Jerome Froese. I don't recommend this album for fans of 70's TD, even for fans of the Schmoelling era. Fortunately, TANGERINE DREAM will evolve and change directions, adopting a more rock oriented sound the following years.