The Mellons in Color by The Mellons: Album Review
The Mellons in Color by The Mellons: Album Review
On their sophomore album, The Mellons in Color, Salt Lake City-based quartet The Mellons—featuring former Imagine Dragons member Andrew Beck—replicate a specific corner of sixties pop culture iconography that isn’t typically rehashed today at the same rate as the stereotypical stoned-out rocker archetype. Instead, they pull from the somewhat lost-to-time “family friendly,” late-sixties TV hippie, the type of hippie—and psychedelia—you could take home to Mom and who was maybe considered a square in those days.
This lack of oversaturation is part of why The Mellons feel as “new” as they do nostalgic. The album’s visual identity follows the same principle, falling somewhere between a coloring book and pop art while still feeling modern. It feels fresh in the way retro-futurism began feeling as it regained a foothold in pop culture in recent years—sounds, aesthetics and visuals of a bygone era presented by current era artists and perceived through the lens of the modern audience, intrinsically tied to the sun-soaked past while the DIY ethos of the present is also omnipresent.
It would be nearly impossible to discuss the album without at least mentioning 1960s band and television icons The Monkees. At first glance, the album pulls inspiration from The Monkees’ television series in just about every way, from the theme song opener and stereotypical “We’ll be right back!” commercial kickoff to a commercial for a groovy radish-themed company. But it isn’t a one-for-one rehash; the record gets more fascinating when we zoom in further. While it resembles an album-length interpretation of their show formula, The Mellons’ record is fundamentally different beneath the Monkees-flavored skin. I’d argue that this LP has more in common with The Weeknd’s radio program-imitating Dawn FM because it never breaks the illusion of being a self-contained broadcast.
“Radiant Radish” is one of the bits that makes this album such an immersive “concept album.” At a minute long, it brings to mind other bizarre vegetable-themed songs, perhaps most notably “Vege-tables” by The Beach Boys. This type of song walks a difficult line between good and annoying, but The Mellons pull it off masterfully. While I cannot speak for the band’s intention, it feels like a direct reference to Brian Wilson’s short-lived health food store in West Hollywood of the same name.
Outside of the tracks necessary for the album’s intended form, the rest of the album hovers naturally between sunshine and baroque pop.
My personal favorite track is “Upside Down,” which instantly brought to mind “Day Tripper” before later introducing a strong dose of The Beach Boys’ “Miss O’Leary’s Cow.” There’s even a brief moment where, strange as it may sound, I couldn’t help but think of dubstep. I doubt they intended to reference dubstep specifically, but I love moments like these—invaluable reminders that every music genre is related to every other by varying degrees. I also enjoyed “I Told Ya All the Time,” the most organ-driven track on the LP, as well as the surreal and modern-feeling “Lady Apple Tree.”
The only thing about this album that I did not enjoy was the vocal on the chorus of “Central Square City Park Flower Days”—especially at the beginning of the song—which I found to be entirely too repetitive, if not grating, in delivery. The rest of the song is quite enjoyable, especially the rhythm section.
Once I stopped looking at what the songs sounded like and started looking at how they sounded, I was surprised by the modern indie and bedroom pop sensibility present. The atmosphere is usually intimate, with light, airy vocals and lush instrumentation. The more I listen to the album, the more I hear Brian Wilson in their arrangements. They use a cornucopia of instruments like Mellotron, harpsichord, euphonium, fife and more to create a gorgeous wall of sound that engulfs the listener through a decent pair of headphones. It’s one of those albums that feels like it’s just you and the album coexisting in a small space and time.
Its purpose is to interpret a very specific point in time when hippie culture and psychedelia represented a theoretical genesis of the fall of American polite society while also becoming commercially viable to mainstream audiences. The Mellons belong to, are aware of and celebrate their sonic heritage—the psychedelia-adjacent baroque pop lineage that produced The Left Banke, The Zombies, The Association and more. I believe this is the band’s strongest record yet, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for them.
The Mellons in Color was released on June 19th, 2026.
Johnny Damron is an Ohio-based music writer and founder of Sauna Sounds, an independent outlet focused on music history, culture, and analysis. His work explores psychedelia, classic rock, and the cultural stories that surround music.
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