Review Summary: An excellent slice of cheery pop-rock
In the early-mid 70s there was a genre of predominantly (but not exclusively) British bands called ‘Glam-Rock’, which, while not really sounding like late 80s ‘Glam-Metal’, had an influence on that genre, especially the image.
If you are not familiar with 70s Glam-Rock, it sounded like bubblegummy , good timey rock n roll with sometimes absurdly high pitched backing vocals, a sense of carefree and rebelliousness, some bands had a slight infusion of progressive rock, and often having chirpy synths in the background. The lyrics were usually much-ado-about-nothing, but to their credit they were usually fine musicians.
Some of the biggest hits of this style were Jigsaw ‘Sky High’, Pilot ‘January’, David Essex ‘Hold me close’, The Sweet ‘Fox on the run’, among others. Other bands were the infamous Bay City Rollers, Cheap Trick, T-Rex, Slade, while ‘Yellow Brick Road’ era Elton John is considered as such.
Which brings us to 2020, and in a completely different world, a brother duo from New York City have passionately revived the genre, with an impressive amount of dedication to recreating the original sound, and, the image as well (with mixed results - that cover looks like the ‘have a walk on the wild side for $5’ look), which is kind of amazing considering this sort of music is very far removed from whatever else is mass-produced by the music machine. I don’t know how in 2020 they can just conjure up that carefree spirit of the 70s, seemingly so easily.
In fact, ‘The Lemon Twigs’ and their latest album ‘Music for the general public’, is pretty much everything I described above. They even have that off-the-wall humour those British bands used to have. Unfortunately they also bring the same weaknesses, especially inconsistency. A lot of those bands albums would feature a couple of cringe-inducing moments where they sounded like they weren’t even trying.
The poor moments here are the ballad ‘Hog’ - I appreciate them trying to be humorous, but this ballad feels like it could have been developed into something emotional and profound, but they couldn’t take the trouble. The utterly bizarre ‘Leather Together’ works a lot better, and somehow with its Chinese whispers style of repeating the chorus a bit different each time works. The opening song is a bit typical, while the closing 5 minute epic ‘Ashamed’ while not a bad song, a kind of ode to being blind drunk, is a little too campy for its own good. The singing sound like a couple of drunken old goblins struggling to find their way home at 2am on a Sunday morning - perhaps in London. But being too campy was part of ‘Glam-Rock’, Elton Johns ‘Caribou’ album was testament to that.
However, ‘The Lemon Twigs’ are a breathe of fresh air in 2020. They are much better than just ‘competent’ musicians and it’s almost hard to believe the two brothers play all the instruments themselves, that is impressive!
And when they take their songwriting more seriously, they are fine songwriters. ‘Live in favour of tomorrow’ ‘No one holds you closer’ ‘Fight’ ‘The one’ - all these songs are melodious, upbeat pop rock and would seamlessly slide into classic rock radio, you could imagine working people whistling along while it plays in the background on the radio.
Actually the lyrics to some of these songs are more meaningful than they at first appear - ‘No one holds you closer’ (which, on reflection, feels a bit ELO) is about unrealistic expectations and the negative impacts of too much fantasy, while ‘The One’ is also about absurd standards people expect of a relationship, while ‘Live in favour of tomorrow ’ contends that it isn’t always better to ‘live for today’.
The song that really stands out is ‘Only a fool’, this song has a more original melody and, if you listen carefully, you can hear plenty of chord changes in the background instrumentation that help make this song interesting. The soft vocals on ‘Somebody loving you’ deep into the background a bit, which is a shame since this is one of the most original melodies on the album.
So ‘The Lemon Twigs’ is an enjoyable album for people who couldn’t care less about current events or being hip and well-informed on the latest trends, and are quite happy to immerse themselves in some happy joy-ride into bubblegum rock from the past - with a few bumps in the road unfortunately!
