Melanie Love

I haven’t written in a long time. Well, that’s not quite true – I churned out a dissertation and co-authored a book (Secrets And Lies In Psychotherapy, for anyone intrigued!). While I’ve been kept away from music writing, I’ve still been as steeped in songs as ever. I’ve found that my music consumption has changed shape a bit over the years: I’ll devour a few albums deeply and obsessively, and then find myself exploring individual songs. So this task was a refreshing one, as I got to comb the depths of my Spotify for what has moved me over the…

In 2004, I was an eighth grader with a newfound obsession with Queen and an equally strong desire to avoid doing my trigonometry homework. Over the course of 12 years, the obsession deepened into the longest-lasting love of my life; I never used trigonometry again, but Queen’s A Night At The Opera has been a constant companion, and I’ve spent all of my young adult life trying to put those feelings into words. Back when the Vault first emerged in 1997, it was a rarer thing to have your own little corner of the world to share and connect with…

Nothing says Wednesday night like a little rock ‘n’ roll, and this tight, rollicking set by Icelandic foursome Kaleo was more than worth braving some torrential rain. Kaleo (made up of drummer Davíð Antonsson, bassist Daníel Ægir Kristjánsson, lead guitarist Rubin Pollock, and Jökull Júlíusson on vocals and guitars) has been stateside for about a year now, and I’ve been following their single releases like a trail of breadcrumbs toward rock greatness for what feels about as long. They’ve been building a quietly steady buzz for awhile now and seem poised to break through, being tapped as one of Rolling…

It may have been a school night (even for me, the Vault’s resident grad student), but last Tuesday night, three bands on their final stop of their tour rocked the Music Hall of Williamsburg ‘til after midnight to an equally raucous crowd. Headliners Atlas Genius wouldn’t even hit the stage until just before 11, ceding it first to two up-and-comers: New York’s own Mainland and DREAMERS, who both kept our attention, albeit with wildly different sets. First up, the indie quartet Mainland whirred through a set of upbeat, punky-pop tunes, each sassier than the next. They opened with “Not As…

My mom recently moved out of my childhood home, packing up twenty years, two hundred Beanie Babies, countless CDs, and two bulldogs for an epic cross-country move. But what didn’t make it onto the moving truck was my Wall Of Queen, the massive collage that I spent most of my adolescence and teen years carefully curating. It was made of lyrics scrawled directly onto the paint, pictures of Freddie Mercury with and without his signature mustache, vinyl records (used for decoration seeing as I don’t actually own a record player)…over time, some other interlopers made it onto the Wall, like…

Ever since catching the Foo Fighters at a festival in 2012, it’s been on my bucket list to see the legendary rockers headline their own show. Three years later, my rock ‘n’ roll dreams have been fulfilled with the Foo’s raucous, blistering, positively epic second night at Citi Field in Queens, New York. (Not to mention a standout appearance from up-and-coming heirs to the rock throne, Royal Blood, who readied the crowd with some of the raw, roiling cuts off their self-titled debut). It was no matter that Dave Grohl was playing with a broken leg, an injury sustained at…