Review By Patrick Joseph
“Fever” opens with swirling, affected chords that set a complex backdrop for the beautiful song to come. A unique and fantastically performed drum groove gives this song its momentum, allowing the melody to float and travel without ever losing the song’s directional compass. The vocal delivery is confident and precise, blending with interesting production techniques to achieve a dream-like quality.
Lyrically, “Fever” expertly captures a moment of epiphany.
“Tonight I felt the fever break when you looked in my eyes, The fire turned grey, And oh how it aches to be painfully close but far away.”
Rogers delivers these lyrics with an inspiring openness.
“I see now I was out of control… Scared you would leave if I came up for air .”
Insightful and honest, these lyrics match the feverish tone of the music perfectly.
“Fever” demonstrates an extremely strong artistic voice. This is a song that sets out to achieve something very specific and hits the nail on the head. The chorus drops down to just acoustic and vocals in a bold arrangement choice which gives listeners the feeling of clarity during a confusing time. Production values are incredibly high, and each arrangement decision seems very deliberate. All pieces fit together to create an impressive depth of sound and an overall mesmerizing song. Listeners will fall in love with “Fever” over and over again.
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About Melanie Rogers
The idea of recording and releasing personal, heart on her sleeve songs–and secular music in general—would have been unthinkable for indie-pop singer-songwriter Melanie Rogers just a few years ago. Until 2019, her life trajectory and career goals were all within the church context and Contemporary Christian Music industry. Melanie, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA, began playing the piano at 5 and guitar at 11. She’s been writing songs as long as she can remember, but felt like she needed to suppress her deeper artistry for many years while focusing her talents on the musical worship experience.
While attending Westmont College, where she earned a degree in religious studies, she performed for a couple of years in the college chapel band, which put on concert-style services three times a week for groups of 2,000 people. She later moved to Seattle to go to grad school and become a therapist, and also got involved with a church and continued playing worship music. After a change in church leadership, she was let go unceremoniously – a bitter experience that prompted her to rethink her goals in Christian music, reassess her life path and even question her faith itself.
As Melanie dives fully into embracing the artist she feels she was always meant to be, she draws us in from the emotional get-go on “Fever”, her debut self-penned single. She brings her soulful and ethereal perspective to that singular, heartrending moment we can all relate to.
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