Review: The total effect of Melissuh’s debut ep, "Force," is something ghostly and innocently hopeful.

Force, the debut EP from Melissa Chilson aka Melissuh, is a prism carefully etched and inscribed with somber poems we’re invited to trace with our fingers as we rotate it in our hands. And in a remarkable 17-minute runtime she manages to use it as a refracting device for absolute loss, the borders of identity, and the sense that these things can be transcended. The total effect is something ghostly and innocently hopeful, like a conversation with an inner child. 

Because of that, it’s tempting to characterize the careful design of these songs as somehow delicate - the opposite is true. These are sturdy, self-enclosed narrative universes of emotional fact. It’s a sensibility evident on other projects like Posture Clinic, and on this EP it’s cranked up significantly. Between the sun-drenched imagery suffusing opener Sacramento (“ran around in the backyard, spit water from her dirty mouth and said God my perfect life’s so hard”) to the spiraling heartbeat of Bedhead (“I’m bringing home a baby bumble bee”) we get a sense of crackling desperation that can only be present in something true. 

There are certainly some similarities to the crystalline, declarative stream-of-consciousness vocal work of Nilufer Yanya or Julie Byrne. But this project is dominated by an obvious and unique ear for pacing that makes it rise above and beyond more standard singer-songwriter fare. Whenever we linger on an emotion for even a second too long (the shimmering crooning that skates across Song for Roy or the cinematic breakdown that rounds out Beadhead) Melissuh snaps us out of it and keeps the wheel turning with any number of the synth textures and shapes folded into these songs. Together they function more as movements in a short symphony than discrete units.

In the process, she doesn’t shy away from the more unnerving oil-stained corridors of memory - parts of Berlinterlude could just as easily fit in on an early Boards of Canada project as it does here. And because of this when we’re sent off with Force’s dreamlike chamber pop closer Brain Song (“So I’ll slip away, sail ship, leave bay [...] I’ll be okay.”) the prism shatters, and we’re left free to consider what exactly we’ve just experienced. 

Melissuh's debut ep Force was released on August 31st, 2025