Melissa McClelland 'Victoria Day' album

On June 30th, Melissa McClelland will release her third studio album, Victoria Day, on Six Shooter Records. With fervent vocals and detailed narratvies McClelland brings her seductive bluesy gems to life, painting pictures throughout the album that are both vivid and rich with emotion. With a stunning vocal performance by Ron Sexmith on the gentle "Seasoned Lovers" and produced by husband Luke Doucet, Victoria Day is like a roadmap tracing the veins of a country one could only dream of visiting.

Amidst the loves we leave and seek, there are songs pointing to the stars and arms reaching through the blackout. We rest easy knowing that soon the sky will be filled with burning lights, our eyes brimming with wonder. Suddenly, from out of the past, a voice leans into the May wind with a heartful of harmony: “Today is Victoria Day.”

Melissa McClelland returns with her highly anticipated third album, Victoria Day. Produced by husband Luke Doucet, her Six Shooter Records debut finds McClelland deeply in touch with a sense of melody and wordplay that rivals any of her contemporaries.

Like a roadmap tracing the veins of a country one can only dream of visiting, Victoria Day is both seductive and compelling. “Glenrio” invites us to a rusty locale where one can only leave with bloody knuckles. Snow falls slowly over the gentle “Seasoned Lovers,” which also features a stunning vocal performance by Ron Sexsmith. McClelland’s virtuosity as a lyricist is best illustrated in “When the Lights Went Off In Hogtown,” which immortalizes the Toronto blackout of 2003 with a playful and surreal command of imagery. Victoria Day is a work constituted of anthems and odes, of harlequins and hymnals, penned by a quiet poet in a corner of the bar. The songs rendered on this recording extend their hands and lean against the May wind as though the world were their shoulder. “Today is Victoria Day,” they say. “Enjoy yourselves.”

Melissa’s impressive talent is particular compelling when she performs, which is why she has with such notable artists as Sarah McLachlan, and Luke Doucet, and was the single guest vocal appearance on Blue Rodeo’s lauded Live at Massey Hall (2008). Melissa’s song crafting skills have not gone unnoticed south of the border, where “Passenger 24” from the album Thumbelina’s One Night Stand captured the title of “Best Americana Song” at the Independent Music Awards.

Melissa McClelland tour dates
5/27 Brooklyn, NY @ Union Hall
5/28 New York, NY @ Living Room
6/16 Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Cafe
6/17 San Francisco, CA @ Hotel Utah

Melissa McClelland biography
Some dream of marrying the girl next door. Other's fantasize about one wild night with her in the back of daddy's car. At first glance, Melissa is the perfect object of both desires: classically demure in a pink cashmere sweater, until a blood red bra strap suddenly leaps from her shoulder. She's the type of girl to which you'd entrust all of your worldly possessions, giving her the keys to your house, the keys to your car, only to discover later that she tore the roof off one and disappeared for days in the other. Fairy tales are made of girls like these; or in Melissa's case, re-written by them.

Thumbalina's one night stand is the first of its kind. This album is a collection of dark fables for the soul, where love haunts solitude and fantasy trumps reality. By unflinchingly internalizing pop music sensibilities, Melissa carefully maps out the landscape within us. She explores the rules on the inside, for it is there where most rules are broken.

Never begrudging us our bearings or herself tradition, Melissa's music and lyrics both sooth and comfort us. She has the utmost respect for the forms of expression she has chosen, and lovingly buckles us in for the ride. Nevertheless, we are mysteriously transported someplace entirely unexpected, yet always a sacred place we were somehow meant to go.

Thumbalina is not entirely Melissa's tale. It belongs to all those who have flirted with would be disaster, taken a left turn instead of a right, inhaled so deeply that cracks become roads and slipping becomes strutting. It also belongs to the visionaries that came together to make it so: her right hand man, producer and guitar extraordinaire Luke Doucet; stellar players, Rick May and Paul Brennan; engineering by Andre Wahl; additional production by Jeff Trott and mixing by Greg Collins; and the icing on the cake, guest appearances by Greg Keelor (Blue Rodeo), Justin Rutledge, and Sarah McLachlan.

With this album Melissa McClelland has risen as the avant-garde mistress of inner pop noire. Sometimes purgatorial, other times ephemeral, she is both poet and pioneer. She never flinches at the ugly, never falters at the undone. Instead, she continually rises, one minute the vixen, the next apple pie.

A dark feline beauty in a spotless white summer dress in the deepest of southern romances on the coldest of winter nights, Melissa is a heroine you will not be able to get out of your mind.

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Melissa McClelland - Victoria Day