The Lemon Twigs are one of those names you see a lot of the cool kids mentioning on the socials, but to my eternal shame I hadn’t heard a note of theirs before the first listen of this, the follow up to their critically acclaimed 2023 LP Everything Harmony which was adored by the likes of Questlove, Iggy Pop, and The Guardian amongst others.
So there were no preconceptions, no great expectations diving into this, their fifth album, arranged and produced entirely analogue in their Brooklyn recording studio on period specific equipment.
The Lemon Twigs consist of two brothers, Brian and Michael (no, not the ‘Matchstick Men and Matchstick Cats and Dogs’ hitmakers) from the US, and they made this record pretty much straight after the last.
And it starts bright and breezy enough with lead single ‘My Golden Years’ the first of a handful of tracks that bring to mind both Ben Folds and The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players in their simplicity and almost child like rhythms, with ‘They Don’t Know How To Fall In Place’ being the catchiest.
Its no surprise, with such a Beatlesy influence to proceedings, to find out that ‘In The Eyes Of The Girl,’ was co-produced by Sean Ono Lennon in his upstate New York studio, which had the brothers tracking drums and piano while Lennon handled bass duties.
The second half starts with the reflective, jangly ‘If You And I Are Not Wise’ and ‘How Can I Love Her More’ both perfectly fine pop songs, but if anything, it’s all too clear cut, all too perfected, it’s not a record that hints at any sort of soul to it.
The sparser ‘Ember Days’ is propelled by a pleasant string effect, before ‘Peppermint Roses’ brings back the land of Monkees and Beach Boys and it makes you wonder why people are fawning over them instead of just listening to the actual bands of the time.
The closer ‘Rock On (Over And Over)’ throws the kitchen sink at it musically, glam rock that could soundtrack the long awaited 3rd Brady Bunch Movie.
Its all fine, just fine, for those of a nostalgic mind then it makes perfect sense for them to be your new favourite band, but for those who live in the present then there’s just not enough mischief or personality to appeal, it just left me cold.
