The Lemon Twigs - Look For Your Mind!

“Heroes of power pop” transcend “Sixties revivalists” label, dealing their strongest LP to date

With algorithms’ tendency to rinse-and-repeat ad nauseam and the crushing mediocrity of the current pop landscape, it’s no wonder our culture can’t get enough of nostalgia. All the biggest pop acts right now are referencing somebody or something, right up to the Coachella stage. Sabrina pulls from the Madonna-Dolly grab bag. Addison is aiming for Blackout-era Britney meets Ray of Light-era Madonna. Charli’s just gone and stepped on her guitar with one high-heeled shoe a la Kim Gordon to hard-launch her “rock album.” Justin Bieber is...pulling up his own music videos on YouTube and doing karaoke with himself? I don’t know, man.

Recently I’ve gotten to thinking we’re speeding towards consumption by nostalgia. (I know, I’m one to talk.) But is there such thing as being “too referential” anymore, or can this be excused by a post-irony, post-sincerity culture where everything references something else?

Above: The Lemon Twigs go on a Monkee-ish adventure in the "My Golden Years" video. Brian said this song inspired the Twigs' direction on Look For Your Mind!

Long Island indie pop-rock outfit the Lemon Twigs aren't strictly "Sixties revivalists." But they've always referenced somebody or something else. Brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario do have the matching, grown-out mop-top haircuts, though, and they've been totally embraced by the Sixties-loving set. They guest-edited the most recent issue of Shindig! Their sugary-sweet sound has earned them comparisons to Big Star, the Raspberries, Todd Rundgren, and of course, the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Famous fans include the likes of Questlove, Thundercat, Micky Dolenz, and Elton John. They even got the stamp of approval from the late, great Brian Wilson. The Lemon Twigs have also earned the title “heroes of power pop.”

The road was long (and weird) for the brothers D’Addario. It took them through a lifetime of music; their father is a working musician as well. It took them through Broadway: little Brian originated the role of Flounder in the Broadway musical adaptation of Disney’s The Little Mermaid! (And yet I never hear “nepo baby” accusations towards this band!) Ten years ago, they dealt a dazzling debut album, Do Hollywood, and follow-up EP Brothers of Destruction. Then...“What do you mean they wrote a concept album about a chimpanzee raised as a human?!”

Upon leaving 4AD (and high school,) the Lemon Twigs finally started to come into their own. Everything Harmony nailed down a more reserved facet of the guys, with introspective writing. With its Millennium and Left Banke-worshipping sound, A Dream Is All We Know made several publications’ best-of lists.

My feelings on the latter have cooled since its release. I can’t shake the feeling I got when I heard “In The Eyes Of The Girl.” It was so clearly inspired by the Beach Boys’ “Little Surfer Girl” that I just...went ahead and listened to “Little Surfer Girl.” The Twigs sure do love their Sixties, but they air on the heavy side at times.

Across their latest LP, Look For Your Mind! (yes, it’s stylized with the exclamation point,) the Twigs try to balance a “Wrecking Crew” feel with the core song. Michael admitted in interview for the OUTSIDELEFT blog that they have a habit of over-dressing. The Twigs have made a conscious effort to place more emphasis on the band overall on Look For Your Mind! Danny Ayala, the Twigs’ former keyboard player/current bassist, andtouring drummer Reza Matin are staple players. Michael’s girlfriend, Eva Chambers of Tchotchke, plays some bass. (Her work on “I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You” is one of the highlights of the LP.) She designed thecover as well. Brian and Michael largely kept it all in the family, even inviting their dad on board as a guest, but having their touring band on record is new for them. Much overdue, if you ask me.

The Lemon Twigs set high expectations for Look For Your Mind! The moody cover features repeating motifs of Brian and Michael’s faces, obscured by their long hair. The title is plenty psychedelic (Look For Your Mind, man!) and the hype sticker promises “to make an incursion into the center of the human brain...” Neither title nor packaging deliver the volume or psychedelia they wink at. Instead, Look For Your Mind!’s pop feel lays the groundwork to delve into themes of paranoia and insecurity.

This is far from the first time the D’Addario brothers have used pop song structures and sounds to “get real.” Everything Harmony centers around loss, and A Dream grapples with feelings of personal inadequacy. The title track of Look For Your Mind! is a natural, if quite literal continuation of both. From parsing through lyrics like “When all the choir boys have gone/And trojan horses linger on,” this might be about losing one’s mind. “I do think that now is a time of insanity,” Brian said on the band’s official Bandcamp page. The opener is a Lemon Twigs song through-and-through: the brothers play all the instruments and sing all the parts.

“Look For Your Mind” also introduces the album’s sonic focal point: twin guitars. The song is dominated by stylish, overdriven lead, and Michael does his best John Lennon on the hook. This is far from the only Look For Your Mind! tune that goes Fab. The terminally-catchy “I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You” was clearly chosen as lead single for its Beatle resemblance. That’s what gets clicks, after all. “Nothin’ But You” employs “Ticket To Ride” drums. Brian’s go-to instrument this time around was his 12-string. But when the brotherly vocal blend kicks in, it quickly veers away from Beatle territory.

Above: The Lemon Twigs' very Beatle-esque "I Just Can't Get Over Losing You" video

Where Look For Your Mind! continues the themes of previous Lemon Twigs LPs, “2 or 3” revisits A Dream’s full-blown sunshine pop sound. The Twigs say they tried for “sugary,” “twee,” and “exaggerated, cartoony” guitars, and this song certainly lands all three. There’s a ham-fisted key change at the end, but “2 or 3” has a key element that prevents the Lemon Twigs from becoming cliché. I’ve always appreciated that their lyrics are more than boy-meets-girl, me-you-love. Our simple narrator has fallen for an ambitious, well-read woman, and feels inadequate in her presence. “I wonder what she sees in me/I try but I can’t get it right/I didn’t think we were meant to be/But she calls me every night.” It’s easy to get cheesy on a bubblegum tune, but the Twigs manage to avoid doing so on “2 or 3.”

That being said, they fall into the trap on the album’s low point, “Gather Round.” The message is important: choosing resilience and human connection in a world that seeks to divide and make us miserable. But the overly-cheery, hearts-and-flowers, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink (and-also-a-flute) treatment turns it into social justice Magical Mystery Tour. It’s clumsy and a little preachy, and it’s got a big heart, but this space on the disc could’ve gone to non-album single “I’ve Got A Broken Heart” instead.

When the Twigs do “me-you-love,” it’s almost never an uptempto number. The narrator of “Mean To Me” is utterly dejected. He can’t find the words to say besides, “You’re being mean to me.” He’s feeling so low, he can’t even bring himself to ask his lover not to treat him bad. He just finishes the chorus with, “I don’t believe it...” The intricate, interlocking backing vocals are. On side two of the record, “I Hurt You” comes from the other point of view of “Mean To Me.” “I don’t know why I hurt you/I never did before/I’ve become a different person/I no longer can ignore.” Where the former has a nice baroque harpsichord-ish solo (I can’t work out what it is because it’s missing from the liner notes), the latter favors the mid-Seventies with lots of synths and theremin. “You’re Still My Girl” starts as a possible weak point, but it gets better as it develops. By the time the “oooh”s, “aaah”s, and a decidedly Paul McCartney “You’re still my girl!!” rounds the tune out, it earns the strongest chorus and bridge on side two.

My favorite Lemon Twigs song has always been “Light and Love.” I’m not sure they’ll ever write a better lyric than, “You’re my deer inside the headlights/When I’m swerving and crash into a tree.” “Joy” was cut from the same cloth as both “Light and Love” and Brian’s solo album from last year, Till the Morning. “Joy” is quirky and quaint, and unfurls like a beautiful night-blooming flower. Anchored by acoustic guitar, the string swells and well-placed oboe are the heroes of the composition. The Twigs use a smorgasbord of instruments on “Joy” and they all serve a purpose; even the French horn solo and wacky tambura. “Joy” isn’t about a real girl, or about happiness either. It’s about the muse flying away. “Joy lives so far away but she’ll return to me some special day/For she’s my destiny and pretty soon she will be next to me.” What a way to articulate writers’ block!

The Twigs’ baroque pop worship can be nice, but I craved more dimension from A Dream Is All We Know. This time, they’ve add a new flavor to their sonic palate. Several numbers on Look For Your Mind! harken back to that specific strain of mid-Sixties jangly sounds the late Eighties and early Nineties loved. The Replacements, XTC, through the Sundays and the Lemonheads. You know the brand. “Nothin’ But You” and “Fire and Gold” accent Brian’s 12-string with a shiny, distinctly late-Eighties sheen. Michael plays a well-structured solo in multiple parts on the former. With the latter we finally get some phasing. (Now let’s use some reverb next time!) Neither would sound out-of-place on the radio next to the La’s – and looking at the art for the “2 or 3” single, I think that’s intentional. Above all they present one of the more original blends of the Twigs’ influences. I love that they’re broadening their horizons; flavoring their records with stuff outside the Sixties and Seventies. “My Heart Is In Your Hands Tonight” deals more Nineties flair, and Michael lobs out one hell of a falsetto. It’s easily the best lead vocal on the album – and makes Michael’s poor performance on “Yeah I Do” all the more befuddling. He used to be the brother with the weaker voice but he’s clearly put in the work.

That’s not to say going down Route Old-School is a bad thing. “Bring You Down” will make you want to strap your surfboard to the car, flip your boss the bird, scoop your lady, and go! You can always count on Michael to lend a rambunctious rocker to an otherwise mid-tempo record. “Bring You Down” is a punchy, bouncy screw-you to a bad boss. “You know that the man was made just to bring you down.” Reza’s big, booming drummingstyle can stand up to the energy and more done-up numbers on Look For Your Mind! This confection is topped off with hand claps and a flashy Chuck Berry solo. The “Gettin’ real mad, gettin’ real mad” backing vocal is goofy, so is the joke baritone at the end. Why wasn’t this a single?

I’ve been waiting for a dose of psychedelic sounds, and the Twigs finally deliver with “Your True Enemy.” They pull out all the stops for the album’s closer. The lead vocal is run through a Leslie cabinet, Brian plays all the instruments, Michael sings backing vocals, and their dad plays something called a “demon Yeats?” It’s remarkable that the song has the same aural impact as the lush, orchestrated “Joy,” but with a quarter of the players. “Your True Enemy” gives Look For Your Mind! its thematic conclusion. After searching high and low, experiencing love and conflict, making mistakes and owning up to them, the narrator winds up right back at square one only to realize, “I am my own worst enemy.” It’s quite a stunning moment for the overarching theme of Look For Your Mind! and its production.

Overall, the Twigs have taken a step back lyrically from A Dream. They’re better singers, players, melody-crafters, and arrangers than lyricists, but Everything Harmony and Brian’s Till the Morning prove they have a knack for the written word. The latter is practically begging for a reissue; it’s got a more relaxed feel and stronger songwriting I found myself missing at certain points on Look For Your Mind!

The “transparent day” wax (a frosted Coke-bottle green) has a thinner sound overall on side one. It’s such a shame it lacks punch on the vocals, considering vocals are the Lemon Twigs’ thing. Save for one loud pop on “Yeah I Do” and brief crackle on “Joy,” the wax is otherwise clean. Side two fares much better. Each part is balanced; especially important for a band-and-orchestra number like “Joy” and heavily-affected “Your True Enemy.” Given the Lemon Twigs take pride in all-analog recording and Paul D. Millar and Scott Hull (MASTERDISK, as delineated in the dead wax) mastered this album, I'm not sure how side one went sideways.

I commend the Lemon Twigs for being more patient in interview than I ever could be. They’re constantly asked, “Do you think you were born in the wrong era?” Because their music is “sooo authentic!” They cleverly answer, “I don’t know…” While the Lemon Twigs’ harmonies and catchy hooks are all Sixties and Seventies, neither their arrangements nor production ever quite get there. Don’t get it twisted: this is a good thing. A “revival” act has to have (or lack?) some quality in order to keep them from pastiche. The jangle pop twist introduced on Look For Your Mind! is a much-needed refresher. With this album, the Twigs are reviving the revivalists who came before; equal parts cheeky and sincere. They know their place in the pop-rock family tree and they respect it.

Look For Your Mind! might’ve fit on pop radio in the mid-Sixties or the mid-Nineties. At the same time, their music largely works today because of their intimate knowledge of how the “source material” was made. Plus, they have the resources to study what actually made it good. They have the skill to take sounds from the past and transform them into something that makes sense for the future. This is their strongest LP to date. Boneheaded interviewers aside, I’m grateful the Lemon Twigs are active in our current day. If they can combine the best of their sounds on Look For Your Mind! with the writing chops they’ve displayed in the past, the Lemon Twigs might just have an album of the decade in them.