The Lemon Twigs – A Dream is All I Know Review

Prolific is the right word for The Lemon Twigs. Just a year on from their masterful Everything Harmony, the duo dead set on reviving the sounds of the 60s present A Dream is All I Know. Their latest album is a way off yet, but the title track is booming on through speakers across the globe. Rightly so. Modern soft rock wonders tickle the nostalgic portion of our frontal lobe. What a treat. The Lemon Twigs is far more than imitation, and A Dream is All I Know is much more than the soft rock stylings of old. Coming off the high of My Golden Years and admirable follow-up They Don’t Know How to Fall in Place, The Lemon Twigs are three for three on new singles in the lead-up to A Dream is All We Know.  

There is plenty to love with this one, the slight tinge of sci-fi wonder bleeding into a strong collection of instrumentals is admirable. When life gets tough, we live in our heads and all we know is what we hold in our mind. There is no harm in this if we separate the real world from our idyllic sense of place. Pour that glass of wine, and listen in to those UFO-sounding sprinkles buried deep in this mix. Slick guitar work covers the decision to pull away from the rise and fall of its vocal work. You can hear it on My Golden Years, the change of pace from light flutters of surf rock to a gravelly close, the harshness of reaching out for those titular glory days, slipping from reach, a mesmerising achievement. As is A Dream is All We Know. A sense of finding your place in life extends through this track.  

Tired eyes will gloss over the slight change to the title, but we are too far in to change now. A Dream is All I Know feels singular. There is no sharing the treats of sleep, what we envision for ourselves deep in the throes of slumber. But this is the point and the latest piece from The Lemon Twigs is nothing short of joyous. Familiarity helps The Lemon Twigs along somewhat but the similar styles of a glorious decade in music is not the draw here. Much of the love for this retrospective look at the likes of The Beach Boys and surf rock comes from a feeling of missing out but also relies on the strengths The Lemon Twigs bring in their lyrical specifics and instrumental prowess. 

Instead of the darker hits found on Everything Harmony, there is a sense of overwhelming joy filtering through. Those days when the going gets tough are not to be sunk into and thought on. Grab this glass of wine they sing of, relax into the evening and treat yourself to some time away from a world filled with worries. It may be tricky to do so, but the genuine heart which rips through A Dream is All I Know carries its listeners forward into the necessary positivity which was such a key part of the heyday of soft rock. There is still room for stronger messages, but taking your foot off the accelerator is just as important a note as the reflective wonders of their previous album.