Level

With an ethereal sound that is dark around the edges, Mesa Jane's Level is a superb album that hopefully doesn't get overlooked.

It opens with "Haunt You", that you can listen to here. The rest of the album follows similarly but each song having a character of it's own. There is definitely an 80s feel here with the synth. These songs would fit right in on the radio of that era, and could appear on the soundtracks of dozens of movies. Repeatedly throughout the album I thought of The Neverending Story. "Don't Stop" has a jaunty pop sound to it that led me to tapping my feet and dancing in my chair whenever it came up in the rotation on my playlist. So many of the songs are good and evoke images of my youth, which obviously won't happen for everyone.

But for me the real shining moment of the album is when we take a break from the synth and Melissa Olivieri (a.k.a. Mesa Jane) sits down at a piano and takes us through "Meet You There". The emotion and power, and restraint, in the song makes it a stand out.

Level doesn't sound exactly like Mesa Jane's previous effort, Spandex Heart, but that's a good thing. We already have Spandex Heart. With Level we get a new vision, and it's a good one.