The Melancholy Kings - Her Favorite Disguise (2025) Hi-Res

The Melancholy Kings are from northern New Jersey and their music both celebrates and cringes at life on the edges of the big city; showcasing their diverse influences (Rolling Stones to Wilco and Replacements to the paisley underground) and rocking with a quiet intensity recalling the rough-hewn insouciance of 80s, pre-grunge alt-rock. The Melancholy Kings were formed while singer/guitarist Mike Potenza and bassist Scott Selig were suffering the ennui of law firm existence in offices two doors apart in 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 Lower East Side and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Brought together for a charity gig, The Melancholy Kings were born. With Paul Andrew (Fluffer, Phantom Tollbooth) on drums and Peter Horvath (Potenza’s former high school band-mate and leader of the legendary The Anderson Council) on guitar, The Melancholy Kings filled out their roster. I was lucky enough to grow up in a time when the realms of rock, the world of pop, and the formative indie sound all seemed to mix and merge happily. Pop music was as likely to be made by people wielding guitars and loud amps as by synth players wearing loud shirts. Despite us being in more adventurous, post-genre times, this seems no longer the case. Or at least it would if bands like The Melancholy Kings didn’t make precisely the sort of music that ruins my argument!

For this is pop. But it is pop made from jangling, killer guitar lines, kick-ass drums, bopping basses, and singalong choruses. No dance routines, no guest rappers, no gimmicks, just quality pop music writ large…and groovy! It sounds like alt-rock, but it feels like pop music, ticking all the boxes for infectiousness, accessibility, fun, and groove along the way.

“Six Feet Down” ushers the album in with a ’60s vibe, or at least a Paisley Underground feel, that early eighties scene that took that earlier era’s torch and ran with it.