Lemon Memory

Building on the experiments of ‘Super Transporterreum’ and allowing all their multiple sides to flourish, ‘Lemon Memory’ shows a band unencumbered by the constraints of genre or even their own musical history.

An impressive leap forwards.

Lemon Memory is a markedly different creature to the Leeds band's debut and all the stronger and more tantalising for it - Menace Beach seem to be taking the opportunity of a rather ominous looking 2017 to create a pretty attractive alternative musical universe for them and their fans to inhabit.

With lyrics that reflect both their own lemon-centric worries and the foul, worried malaise that was 2016 on the whole, Lemon Memory is an anxious and affecting display of raw indie rock.

What sets this second album apart from its predecessor is the balance of power in the band. Where Ratworld was driven by Needham’s voice, Lemon Memory sees Liza Violet take the lead on several tracks. 

There’s certainly more emphasis on the band’s love of drone and psych music this time round, which doesn’t always work particularly well.

As it stands, Lemon Memory is an improvement upon their debut. Whereas, Ratworld was a little more one-dimensional, Lemon Memory adds a few tricks to the repertoire.

It’s undoubtedly a leap forward from the invigorating Ratworld, but while the range of tangents explored makes it a more interesting album, its lack of incisiveness prevents Lemon Memory from being called a better record.

Wrapping a classic rock sound in a modern psych blanket, the young quintet have shown some impressive progression on Lemon Memory, following from 2015’s Ratworld.

The effect was transformative, the fuzz-drenched mode of 2015 debut Ratworld supplanted by more thoughtful, diverse creations.

Ultimately ... the problems with ‘Lemon Memory’ are two-fold: first, the songs aren’t distinctive enough but secondly – and much more damagingly – they rarely resolve into anything particularly exciting.

It’s crushingly disappointing from a band that can sound so much better.