In the Randomised Record series, I take us both on an adventure to (re)discover my record collection. Fate decides: whether it be that obscure grunge album I bought recently or that emo rap record from 2017. Nothing is safe from the hands of the randomiser! I will listen to the entire album and highlight my favourite song off of it here on the blog. Do I still enjoy my records as much as when I bought ‘em? Let’s find out. Today, episode 11: ‘Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In’ (2022) by Melt Yourself Down.

When it comes down to buying records, I often like to challenge myself to purchase some out-of-the-ordinary albums. For example, during my so called ‘Borough Adventures’ through London, in which I’ll be exploring one of the city’s boroughs and challenge myself with a few tasks during the adventure. One of those tasks is to buy at least 1 record at a local record store, which can be exciting since some stores have a very limited offer up for sale of artists I’m not all too familiar with. Another example could be buying an album of which I really only know 1 song, which makes for an exciting first listen to the album since I don’t fully know what to expect. Today’s record by Melt Yourself Down is a great example of the latter category.

I purchased this album in a record store in Antwerp early 2023, right as I was starting to get into this jazzy rock sound. Bands like The Comet is Coming, O., Sons of Kemet, and today’s Melt Yourself Down released some decent tracks that I took a liking to and it seemed like the saxophone was hotter than ever in the alternative music scene. A solid 2,5 years later and I realise this sound wasn’t destined to live a long life: the hype surrounding these jazzy acts has died down quite a lot. Therefore, ‘Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In’ already feels like it’s a bit of a dated album to me. I bought this album after taking a liking to ‘Nightsiren’, which I still think is one of the better songs on this record, and listening to this album makes me feel like the possibilities are perhaps a bit limited with this specific sound. The main positive about this music is that the musicians are usually absolute masters of their instruments which really lifts the album to a higher level, especially since Melt Yourself Down is not limited to – in the case of O., who released a somewhat disappointing debut album last year – only having two musicians in the band. Though, for me personally, this album will go down as one that I liked during a very specific and perhaps somewhat uninteresting period in my life and even though I still enjoy listening to it, I doubt it will ever reach the status of a classic in my collection.