For his third solo album, released in 2000, Michael changed things around a bit. Martin Bech joined on drums, while Lasse returned on bass and he also brought in a singer for a few songs, Lars Binderup. Of the three albums this is the most frustrating, as it does feel that Michael has decided that he needed a singer to move more into the mainstream and when Lars is singing he takes more of a back seat, only letting rip when Lars isn’t involved. Thankfully that isn’t a great deal, as not only does Lars prevent Michael from playing as he should, but he also isn’t a very good singer and has a detrimental impact on the whole album. On the plus side, Michael is playing better than ever and when he lets go he shows that he can shred with the best of them, but obviously he was no looking forward to being part of a band and when ‘Second Skin’ came out a few years after this it featured Michael, Lars and Martin (and a new bassist) but it had the bandname Melodic Meltdown.
All three of these albums have their merits, but I would probably turn to ‘No Words Needed’ first and then to the debut, before the third. But, Michael’s shredding on the third is in a different league to that on the first two, so it really depends what you think of the vocals.
I’ve been searching the web for information, but all of the links I have for either Michael or Melodic Meltdown seem to be long gone, but if you ever come across these albums they are certainly worth hearing.
