Melissa Geurts’ new album maintenance mode is a full‑body plunge into the strange, restless space between breakdown and healing – the difficult-to-traverse no-man’s-land part of recovery that no one warns you about or has attempted to – until now.
By Katie Stewart
Each song will reach you, relate to you, in some sort of way, however unobvious or distant. Geurts has an impressive ability to turn those indescribable fractions of the human thought-process (or non-process) into dance-worthy synth-pop bangers.
The opening track, not because it’s romantic, starts with melodic yet alarming punches of synth that are almost classical, brass-section adjacent in their brightness but maintaining that clean electronic sound. These beams are subconsciously unsettling.
Like most songs on the album, the instrumental manages to tap into the deep realms of thought that Geurts sings so earnestly about. There’s a darkness to it, this sole musical feature is pressing, insistent, like the constant drip of obligations, duties, and mundanity that can sometimes become consuming. It feels beautiful and enchanting, yet exhilaratingly intimidating.
This immersive opening speeds by overtop a flickering background of synth cascades, with a cinematic sense of pace, building with aching vocals, and breaking off into multiple layered choruses.
In a masterfully dream-like way, the track traverses feelings of longing, desperation, exhaustion, a desire for escapism, and the sense of necessity this feeling can carry when it hits you. The song finishes with haunting, orchestral vocals that are truly rattling, in the best way.
temper temper (lumière menteuse) arrives with a different energy. Offering a gorgeous, crave-worthy sound straight off the bat. It brings atmospheric, full, transcendent synths, a crisp, crystal‑clear beat, and entrancing vocals that effectively switch between French and English.
This track would go so hard in a club; it conjures images of cool light dissipating through fog and haze. You can see the air itself pulsing around you. It feels both fantastical and confrontational in the clarity of its sound. It’s an unflinching anthem.
Another standout track, i think i deleted it, is quiet, brooding, heavy, and expanding with passionate, intentional vocals. Geurts says no to pretending, no to false niceties, and no to tiptoeing.
Boundaries are set with soft clicks, distorted buzzy synths, cascading melodies, and chasmic vocals used as an addictive, percussive hook. The whole song oozes empowerment, whilst remaining graceful, steadfast, and assured both rhythmically and narratively. This track can be summarised by Geurts’ own words: “vulnerable isn’t the same as weak.”
maintenance mode allows you to explore streams of consciousness, confessions, inner turmoil, inner voices, and “therapy notes set to music.” All the songs feel completely surrounding, existing on multiple planes, satisfying every corner of the listener’s needs. It’s immersive, unavoidable, and gut‑wrenchingly dance‑worthy.
The album is out now and you can listen to it below.
