Sleepy and surreal pop mastery
The fourth studio album by Long Island retro rock duo The Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony, seems geared towards cozy nights and lazy mornings—tranquil transitions—like their version of The Beach Boys’ drowsy and hypnotic Smiley Smile. Though the production is consistently evocative; this time around the D’Addario brothers have reigned in their theatrical impulses and favored the mellow, gauzy sound of twee Greenwich Village folk and stonery Southern California jangle. This soothing aural landscape combined with a few key lyrics dealing with loss, renewal and the soulful joy of blended singing make this something of a concept record: self-reflection about being precocious siblings who have absorbed their parents’ record collection to make music that is both new and old.
The great songs on the Everything Harmony are almost fiercely catchy. Like early power pop, they come on naive and soft, but there’s a punky attack to them. On “In My Head,” (in which “my” is defiantly phrased as two stick-in-your-head syllables) the verse is as gentle as billowing sailcloth, then the chorus whips around like a frenzied eel. “Corner of My Eye,” with its soporific brushes and vibes, expresses attraction from afar in an unctuous, bachelor pad soundtrack sort of way. “Any Time of Day,” inspired by dopey ’70s sitcom theme songs, is so airheaded that it lifts off into outer space. It’s one of the best uses to date of those laser-focused D’Addario harmonies the album is partly named after. “Still It’s Not Enough” could be a eerie hundreds of years old Celtic ballad with a modern ’90s indie goth twist.
Non-essential tracks, like the ones that bookend the album (Simon and Garfunkel reference intended) still carry the aesthetic mantle. Though the melody of “When Winter Comes Around” feels a bit generic, (there’s a chance it will turn out to be a hidden-in-plain-sight classic) this opener has the important function of setting the scarves and snow-covered fire escapes tone, preparing the listener for the chilled out experience ahead of them. And as for the last song, “New To Me,” the music may be an example of the forgettable virtuosity the Twigs have always coasted on here and there but the tender words go out to beloved relatives with Alzheimer’s and pack hefty themes: “When your face is new to me / The way it used to be / Don’t try and make me see / We can fall in love again.” This is where the meanings behind the Lemon Twigs’ voraciously referential project finally gather: popular music, a natural social glue like weddings and funerals, continually forgets and repeats itself, the way each new generation has to “discover” the facts of life on its own.
“I love the sky when it’s crazy […] / I like the screen when it’s grainy […] / I like the songs when it’s dreamy / And I’m so obsessed when it’s everything harmony,” go the deliberate lyrics to the title trick, sung in an unusual, insistent rhythm. These lines, along with the impassioned chorus, “I’m trying!” show the Lemon Twigs chasing a particular art feeling that’s vintage, elemental, hazy, mellifluous and all-encompassing. Unsurprisingly, considering the multitalented D’Addario brothers have been capable of executing seemingly any idea they’ve had from the beginning, this is the feeling Everything Harmony puts across to the listener in its most inspired moments.
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