THE LEMON TWIGS – LOOK FOR YOUR MIND!: REVIEW
- May 14
- 3 min read
THE LEMON TWIGS
Look For Your Mind! (Civilians)
THE LAST TIME the brothers D’Addario – multi-instrumentalist, singing/songwriting duo and occasional musical theatre stars, Brian and Michael – were featured here they were accompanied by a caveat. The album was, as could be said of all their six records to date, an homage/love letter to pop music of a time before. Certainly of a time before them, given they were born at the tail-end of the 1990s and their influences clearly had two or three or four decades headstart.
In that case, 2020’s Songs For The General Public, it was an album immersed in the first half of the 1970s, stylistically, sonically and structurally, and they nailed pretty much every element, pushed by a devotee’s attention to detail. It was particular joy almost to the point of train-spotting if you were inclined to the style, energised fun if you were just a casual visitor. But the question mark was over the quality of the songwriting which did not rise to the same level, hampered maybe by a devotee’s attention to detail as much as still-developing ability.
This time? Look For Your Mind! does not suffer from this imbalance: it’s just good all ‘round.
Taking its starting and finishing point as the 1960s, with a particular lean, as might be expected, to The Beatles, it begins by having the Fab’s standard 14-track album arrangement (though breaking the mould, this goes well beyond the 30-odd minute mark) and opens on the title track with a slight drag drum rhythm-with-tambourine, a guitar that has contractually to be called chiming, a lead voice that gets slightly husky in the chorus before going high and free in harmony, and a solo that is simple but clean against a mid-zone noise background. Tick. Tick. Tickety tick tick.
From there it punches away like some classic hits radio station from an alternate universe where you know you know these songs even if you have never heard them before.
There’s the surf-and-hot-rods rumble of Bring You Down, with “a boss who won’t raise my pay”, vibrating guitars, nasally echoing backing voices and a frugging-ready solo you can hang five to with or without a malibu. And the sweet hurt of Nothin’ But You with a drum beat that’s bought a ticket to ride, low vocals that curl upwards over them, a middle eight I could swear I heard on the second Knack album and a denouement that coos its way to the end.
If your heartache over acoustic guitar, strings, low-key woodwind and horn solo in Joy has eased, maybe the Gary Puckett (with the Four-Seasons instead of the Union Gap, and fewer inappropriate age references) nature of You’re Still My Girl mixes big collar toe-tapping and neat suit hair slickness in just the right measure for you. Or maybe your preference is to be in your room with your brothers, cousin and friends harmonising around your little record player as you pine for that girl from your math class, in which case 2 Or 3 may be up your sun-dappled street. And afterwards shake a moptop, please please yourself “today, today”, because I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You.
The evidence of more recent releases from the D’Addarios has been pretty strong that the flaw I saw in Songs For The General Public was disappearing, and now by the time the light psych touches of Your True Enemy gets clangy as the album ends – phasing left, panning right, odd speaking voice in the middle – you’ve taken a quick trip through a decade that might be second hand news but in these songs feel like first time experience at fun.
Which is no small feat in a world too familiar with simulacrum. Enjoy!
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APPLE MUSIC: Listen to The Lemon Twigs- Look For Your Mind!