ALBUM REVIEW: The Lemon Twigs - Everything Harmony

    How about that retro music revival, eh? In the past few years, that's been the big trend for artists - bringing back the years of old to create something new. Typically, the 80s are the common offender here, and artists like The Weeknd with records like After Hours and Dawn FM to indie artists in the case of Mitski's less impressive Laurel Hell have shown that there's a market for the old styles of synth pop, and Jessie Ware's That! Feels Good! also shows a market for disco. Of course, that's all early 80s to late 70s stuff - what if we went back further? That's where The Lemon Twigs come in here with Everything Harmony, an album filled to the brim with bright early 70s pop rock soundalikes with everything from power pop to the bright sounds of sunshine from the late 60s. While it isn't quite on par with many of the classics from yore, it's a more than admirable collection of tunes that does more often than not succeed in their goal - it helps that it's catchy as hell, of course. It makes for a relatively clean and bright look back to the past with more than a few great tunes to boot.

    One of the best aspects of Everything Harmony is the decent amount of variety within the album's tackling of musical ideas. It's all under an undeniable pop bubble, but what they do with that pop ranges; some moments bring to mind the sounds of sunshine pop groups like The Millennium; other moments are invocative of power pop groups like Badfinger with their great guitar licks and instant harmony; others invoke baroque imagery, especially a song like the closing track "New to Me" whose harmonies bring to mind acts like The Beach Boys, which certainly isn't a bad thing. That's without mentioning pop soul tracks like "Any Time of Day" that invoke imagery of the Jackson Five, or the more acoustic tracks that brought to mind a group like Big Star; it's all fairly musically diverse, even with its undying passion for melody and pop sensibility. It helps that the compositions themselves are fairly mature for the genre, and even I could tell that there was unique things happening with my complete lack of music theory knowledge. Sometimes the bouncing about can leave things being a bit uneven, though, especially around the middle portion of the album where it becomes more hit or miss, but it certainly makes for admirable creativity. The few uniting aspects of this album are largely in its consistently crisp production and general focus on more acoustic, mellow numbers, immediately obvious from opening moment "When Winter Comes Around" - It makes for a somewhat simple listen, but hardly an unpleasant one.

    It helps that, for most of the album, they have the song quality to back the album. After the admittedly weak opening track of "When Winter Comes Around", the following "In My Head" gets the energy up proper, and probably would've made a much better introduction to the album, frankly. They manage to keep the momentum going with the album's best song in "Corner of My Eye", a sweet sunshine number with a fantastic and catchy hook, which is frankly the most one could ask for from this album. "What You Were Doing" is a fantastic bit of power pop, amazingly reminiscent of material from Big Star's #1 Record, which is far from a bad thing given how great the song is. This energy is just as alive on the fast-paced "Ghost Run Free", a strong late-album number with a hook almost as memorable as that of "What You Were Doing". Some of the album's ballads vary in quality, but songs like "Born to Be Lonely", the complex closing track "New to Me", or the mostly acoustic "Every Day Is the Worst Day of My Life" showcase the stronger end of this musical spectrum. "Everything Harmony" is a fascinating composition with a peculiar time signature and interesting chord progressions. "Any Time of Day" was a slow burner for me, but ultimately I came around to its great hook and change in style from the rest of the songs on the album with its soul flavor. These moments showcase some of the album's proudest moments, and are the musical throwback done at its best.

    Everything Harmony may be taking from the ideas of old, but it still manages to sound full of life and freshly unique. The Lemon Twigs look back to the world of soft pop with fondness, and in turn give us an album that, more often than not, delivers on its catchy atmosphere and breezy personality. One can hardly be disappointed on such a finely tuned and executed album, especially when its hooks hang in the ear for as long as they do, and to hear such a nostalgic look back on one of my personal favorite genres is certainly a nice addition to 2022's overall decent output. For those who are old at heart: take this old-school minded release into your mind.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Everything Harmony.