The Lemon Twigs fine tune a winning formula on ‘I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You’
Nostalgia in music can be a bizarre thing; one moment it’s completely reviled as though the world is desperate for times to move on and come up with new ideas, and the next moment you find yourself bopping your head to another ‘60s-indebted song by The Lemon Twigs.
Both in their 20s, the D’Addario brothers at the core of the Long Island group have always displayed an infatuation with the sounds of yesteryear, and while their 2016 debut, Do Hollywood, may have been a kitschy slice of power pop and glam rock fun, it was tough to see where the project would head after a 10 years, or if it would even have the legs to go that far.
Well, we’re here now, and with the announcement of their sixth studio album, Look For Your Mind!, accompanied by the release of lead single ‘I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You’, it would appear that not much has developed sonically in the sibling duo’s output, with this latest two-minute slice offering up the same breezy feel of a chart hit from 60 years ago, and lyrically covering the same well-trodden lovelorn path.
Yet, while this sounds like a slant on the band and the entire identity that they’ve carved for themselves over the course of a productive decade, this is about as far as any criticism can be dealt to the Twigs, as their approach to songcraft has proven itself once more to be immune to glaring flaws.
Now flanked by their live band in the studio for the first time, with both Michael and Brian D’Addario having previously handled the vast majority of the recorded instrumentation themselves, this latest track is another sun-kissed delight that has evidently given the brothers more space to consider their own roles, with Michael assuming lead vocal duties and Brian providing harmonies alongside Tchotchke’s Eva Chambers.
Even though they no longer have to focus all of their energy on creating deft arrangements with additional personnel having been pulled into the fold, it hasn’t altered the approach that the band take in any way. The Twigs’ sound still evokes many of the same names that have been passed around as points of comparison in the past, with everyone from Roger McGuinn, Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton seemingly having an impact on their songcraft, and that’s hardly a bad roster of influences to be proudly wearing on your sleeve.
You could argue that the now-matured songwriters could be braver when it comes to exploring new thematic ground, although the tried-and-tested approach of using love and heartbreak rarely ever fails them and avoids becoming trite because of how foolproof it is.
After all, the other extreme for The Lemon Twigs when delving into a wider range of ideas and emotions drums up a divisive hour-long concept album about a chimp who goes to school and then burns the place down in a fit of misunderstood simian rage – you choose what you’d rather hear.
The jangly feelgood melodies of ‘I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You’ are hard to resist, and while it may not be the band at their absolute best, you have to give them full marks for their consistency and dedication to making the art of writing songs in a style so entwined with the past look like a walk in the park. No doubt, Look For Your Mind! will serve up more of the same, and it’ll be just as refined and refreshing as ever.
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