It is creeping towards midnight here. The cat, annoyingly, has found a hair band that he is flicking up in the air. A favorite toy of his- no matter how many toy soft mice etc we get him he loves to find the hair bands! But as we approach the witching hour, the last review of the day is a dark and ethereal number that is released on February 24, 2026. I will have a listen, but first I will share the press release with you.
‘Nashville-based artist and producer Mel Denisse has always leaned into duality. Whether she’s blending left-field pop with jagged alt-rock or threading delicate vocals through dissonant, distorted production, Denisse is drawn to the clash with her newest genre-defiant single, “aiming alone.” She shares, ” ‘aiming alone’ details wanting to be understood with urgency, while still feeling sealed off behind glass. On the other side, the world watches and speculates, close enough to see you, never close enough to meet you. That distance becomes the point: the two realities can’t be reconciled. The outro carries that into finality – an acceptance of the lone road, and the resolve of aiming alone.”
Previous releases earned spins on BBC Radio 1’s Alternative Show, placement on Spotify’s All New Rock, and praise from tastemakers at LADYGUNN, who applauded her “singular approach to alt-rock and pop, setting her apart in a saturated landscape,” calling it “refreshing, essential listening for those craving authenticity in an age of imitation.” Meanwhile, EARMILK described Denisse’s vocal performance as “striking and inviting, as if dispatched from another dimension, in the best way possible, creating a cinematic, noir-drenched world that blurs alt-rock grit with atmospheric storytelling.”
“Aiming Alone” is a melancholy and haunting alt rock meets shoegaze track that is built around the narrative of feeling like there’s a glass wall between you and everybody else and although they can see you, no one seems to truly feel or understand you.
Mel Denisse has received acclaim from the likes of BBC Radio 1’s Alternative Show, OnesToWatch, LADYGUNN and Spotify’s All New Rock playlist among others.’
My review:
“How does it feel to be so alone again?” I haven’t heard Mel Denisse before, so this (stating the obvious) was my introduction to her. This vocally took me toward Enya, albeit a more alt-rock, but that same drifting sense, leaf in the wind kind of thing. It’s a song that I had to listen to a couple of times to review, you can’t snapshot it. It’s instrumentally stripped back, slow beat to the breeze.
I had a dip into an earlier single called “Going Nowhere” to get a taste of other material. “Going Nowhere” is a slightly heavier track, the drum sound being slightly higher in the mix, giving a heartbeat – but this and the new single are clearly close relatives!
As midnight finally tips into tomorrow, “Aiming Alone” feels like the right companion — solitary, searching, strangely beautiful. It’s not a song that rushes toward you; it stands still and waits for you to meet it. And sometimes, that makes all the difference.
One for the night owls and the almost-understood.
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Stream music from Mel Denisse here
By Anna-Louise Burgess