GAJOOB Review by Bryan Baker:
“Crash” doesn’t open this album so much as detonate it.
From the first second, Melancholy Club make it clear that thank god for you isn’t playing coy with your feelings—it’s pulling them out by the collar, shouting them into a sky of fuzzed-out guitars, and dancing in the wreckage. You think you know what you’re in for, and then the band careens sideways with that particular kind of youthful force that’s raw and intentional all at once.
It’s emo, sure—but it’s also something fuzzier and sharper: equal parts punk’s spit, shoegaze shimmer, hardcore urgency, and the sandpaper soul of grunge. And what ties it all together is how alive it sounds. The whole thing feels like it was played in a sweat-drenched room full of friends and ghosts.
Rex Blair’s guitar work twists through the mix like a serpent with a heart—melodic, sneering, and alive to every moment. His lead lines on “galaxy” are pure gravitational pull. Zane Dees on drums flirts constantly with chaos, threatening to spill off the rails in a way that actually drives the band forward. Noah Shelton’s bass is the anchor—solid, warm, felt more than heard but absolutely essential—and Tanner Padbury’s vocals bring the ache. He doesn’t just sing these songs—he lets them out. And by the time you’ve heard “cedar,” you’re listening differently.
That’s the trick here. Melancholy Club might hit you first with volume and velocity, but the substance sinks in. The lyrics are journal entries, existential footnotes, and mantras for late-night drives and early-morning breakdowns. Consider this from “cedar”:
> “I’m starting to feel like I might not be all that important.
> It seems so relieving to not have a place I should be.
> It feels like a blessing to know that you’re actually no one.
> The future is bleak but it’s also never felt so free…”
It’s lines like that which make you realize how rare it is to find a band that balances this much noise with this much clarity.
thank god for you doesn’t try to reinvent a genre. It just plays it like it matters. And it does.
Media: Digital.
