MAKING TRACKS: Melodrome

Written by

Seth Rogovoy

Robby Baier and Jesko Stahl celebrate a decade together as core members of the Housatonic, Mass.-based power trio Melodr

With roots going back to their days in Berlin with major-label group Pearls at Swine, Robby Baier and Jesko Stahl celebrate a decade together as core members of the Housatonic, Mass.-based power trio Melodrome with Flood, released on Baier’s own Soultube Music label. The group’s fourth album features a new batch of its signature riff-based rockers and ballads that hark back to the Rolling Stones and the Kinks in the 1960s and AC/DC and Cheap Trick in the 1970s. While most of the guitar-bass-drums- based songs tackle themes typical of the ones to which this kind of music usually refers—girls, sex, partying— occasionally a more lofty or pointed expression jumps out at a listener, such as a clever play on words using the name of Joe Biden’s predecessor. Drummer Justin Guip rounds out the trio on the recording (Kali Baba McConnell typically serves as the group’s live drummer), and Baier sounds as swaggering and soulful as ever on numbers that also nod to U2 and some of the more recent New York City-based guitar rock. Catch them live in their hometown at the Brick House Pub on June 19 at 9.