Bittersweet Symphonies

THE LEMON TWIGS
Everything Harmony
[Captured Tracks-2023]

 

Despite having begun their careers as child Broadway actors, these 20-something, Long Island, NY multi-instrumentalist siblings have been formally doing the music thing since high school. And over an EP and three albums—one of them a wild rock opera—Brian and Michael D’Addario have shown themselves to be keen songwriters and arrangers who owe a debt of influence to another quirky set of siblings: the Mael brothers of Sparks.

 

But they’ve toned down that playful vibe and it’s other influences they channel on album number four: “Any Time of Day” evokes the Todd Rundgren of the early ‘70s; “What You Were Doing” could be a long lost Big Star song; and “I Don’t Belong to Me” is reminiscent of the Beach Boys’ less commercially successful but musically satisfying immediate post-Pet Sounds output, just to name a few.

 

To be honest, that a couple of musicians who weren’t even alive when Jellyfish disbanded in the early ‘90s—a band with whom they share some musical DNA, as well a bit of a sartorial kinship—this kind of well-crafted, bell-bottom melodicism that chronologically resides somewhere between 1966-1976, is a head-scratching (albeit quite welcome) surprise. Simply stunning. More, please.

 

Released May 5, 2023.