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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Music Whose Time I Wish Would Come, November 12, 2002
By A Customer
Boy Loses Girl.Wait, isn't there something missing there? In the case of Camera Obscura, the answer is no: Boy Loses Girl, Boy Pines For Girl, Boy Wallows Himself Into Oblivion. Such would be the bare-bones plot of this, Paul Melançon's second solo release. The story is not, however, forced upon the listener like a Broadway musical or a late Styx album, but is more a suggestion of theme, a way of drawing together ten wide-ranging songs into a fluid power-pop discovery. Melançon, an Atlanta native, was recently picked up by Amy Ray's pet indie label Daemon Records (and he just finished a short tour of Florida opening for the Indigo Girls). And though this reviewer is a longtime fan of the Girls and several Daemon artists, I honestly must say that this album is the first Daemon offering that has the power and beauty to blow it wide open for the label, moreso even than Ray's solo release, Stag. Melançon has the following things going for him: a heartbreakingly sweet tenor; a self-professed knack for finding nifty chord changes; an obsession with emotionally damaged characters; and a wry sense of humor. He is a gifted songsmith, but not a hit factory. His songs aren't "radio-friendly" in any traditional sense, but they're intelligent, well-produced, and catchy as hell. The varied song-styles represented here don't borrow delicately; they practically bust down the door of sheer pastiche. "Little Plum" owes much to either Don Ho or Tin Pan Alley; "Entr'acte" is a lilting bossanova made strange with theremin; "Jeff Lynne", one of Melançon's strokes of songwriting genius, goes so far as to borrow a riff from the ELO song "Living Thing", and is lacking only the characteristic orchestral string section to be dubbed a lost Lynne production. It wouldn't be fair to say that Melançon has conquered the dreaded sophomore curse, as his first album, Slumberland, was only EP length, and though it floated a lovesick story-arc like Camera Obscura does, those six songs (plus a McCartney cover) didn't come close to spanning the musical and emotional breadth of the more recent release. However, if in producing any future work he takes half as much care as he has with Camera Obscura, he has nothing to worry about. Frankly, I can't quit listening to this album. The CD player in my car automatically loops discs, and while I'm riding the hand-clapping emotional tide of Melançon's cover of "You're So Good To Me" (which sounds as much Phil Spector as it does Brian Wilson), I am caught all over again by the endlessly singable "Overture" ... and so this bittersweet pop opus gets another spin in my stereo.
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by Melançon, Paul 
