From Indiana, USA, comes Atmospheric Black Metal band STARLIT MELANCHOLY, with Jesse Guzman as the sole composer. This is his second full-length, and contains eight songs. “Dew Drops” is first. The opening piano work is beautiful, but the production is very muted. The Black Metal sound that follows is aggressive, but melodies continue to mix in. The track seems a little disjointed, and amateur sounding. “Moonlit Bloom” has more charming piano notes in the beginning, morphing into a thicker Black Metal sound. Jesse is trying harder to blend all of the elements together, but it still comes off as disjointed to me. There are some nice moments, however.

“Clouded Haze” is a short three minutes of spring birds chirping, going about their daily tasks. “Suffocating in Silence” has more competing elements. The beauty is so close to being realized and it peaks at times, but never quite gets there. He has the Black Metal sound down, however, but even that seems a bit generic. “Velvet Bleed” is a little more cohesive in terms of the elements playing together more fairly, and the brighter side of the music shines through the darkness. “Petals of Autumn” has a darker side that tries to overcome the light, and it succeeds at times, but the keyboards plow through with a fistful of sun rays.

“Star-Crossed Strangers of Melody” is a short three-minute song, consisting mostly of keyboards and other electronic sounds. The lengthy title track closes the album. It is all over the place. Sometimes, Jesse catches a melody line and lets it ride, but these moments are too few and far between. But the song is again, quite disjointed. You have to give props to the songwriting efforts of a one-man band. He put his best effort into this release, but it still falls short. If he could reign in some of the elements that branch out foo far, this could be very special. As it is, however, very middle of the road.