The Melancholy Kings

The Melancholy Kings are from northern New Jersey and, as transplants from NYC, they wear their lovehate relationship with the Garden State and its big city neighbor on their collective sleeve. In terms of musical style, think Paul Westerberg meets Jeff Tweedy somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.

The Melancholy Kings were born of the ossification and desolate misery that exists in its purest form at certain white-shoe NYC law firms. Singer/guitarist Mike Potenza (The Anderson Council, Crash Harmony, The Bard Band and Gramercy Arms collective inhabitant) and bassist Scott Selig (Ambulance, Uncle Moon, Deni Bonet Band and Super Tuesday) suffered the ennui of law firm existence in offices two doors apart on the 47th floor of a non-descript building in Midtown Manhattan, all the while not knowing of each other’s secret parallel pasts as quasi-bohemian post-punkers from the pre-gentrified Lower East Side and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. During the indie craze of the ‘90’s and ‘00’s, they played in a number of different almost-famous bands, traveling the world and playing at some of the iconic clubs and venues of the era – as the opening act for bigger acts and legendary artists. After souring of the scene and the lifestyle, they each turned to the law as that rebound relationship that one often comes to regret, all the while doing various side projects to maintain – if barely – a baseline degree of sanity.

Brought together for a charity gig, Selig and Potenza bonded over their similar musical pasts, their shared current misery and their simpatico playing together. Having since escaped that Midtown office, they rededicated themselves to expressing the music that has been, and continues, welling up inside of them. With Paul Andrew (Fluffer, Phantom Tollbooth) on drums and Peter Horvath (Potenza’s former high school band-mate, a third of The Make Three and leader of the legendary The Anderson Council) on guitar, The Melancholy Kings filled out their roster. (For the next album, Scott Jones (The Anderson Council) will be taking over drum responsibilities, making The Melancholy Kings TAC’s own Dukes of Stratosphear (kind of)).

The Melancholy Kings unabashedly acknowledge their influences, from The Knack to Wilco and from the Replacements to the paisley underground, as demonstrated by Potenza’s and Horvath’s interweaving guitars, the subtle bass lines of Selig and Andrew’s mad-genius drumming. Selig and Potenza alternately fill in on keyboard parts sprinkled throughout their recordings.

After a pandemic-driven hiatus following their debut, eponymous release, The Melancholy Kings’ sophomore album, Her Favorite Disguise, once again taps into the vicissitudes of life in and among the shadows of Gotham. From Astor Place, which recounts the too-familiar tale of suburban exodus to the Jersey promised land, to Bitcoin Elegy’s musings on isolation in the digital age; from UV’s post-modern homage to the mysterious V replete with whooping incantations and a rollicking trumpet solo from musical guest, Mac Gollehon (David Bowie, Duran Duran, Hall and Oates (and many others)), to the lonely tale in New Girl of a man hopelessly in love with a film noir siren, Her Favorite Disguise both celebrates and cringes at the rich tapestry of life’s follies in the Big Apple and its homely step-sister across the Hudson, all the while rocking with a quiet intensity recalling the rough-hewn insouciance of 80s, pre-grunge alt-rock.

If you miss the days of Dinosaur Jr. on 120 Minutes and the Feelies on college radio, and if you dogmatically feel that R.E.M. was at their finest when you couldn’t make out the lyrics, The Melancholy Kings are here to say, “It’s alright; help has arrived.