The Lemon Twigs

Following the release of Everything Harmony, which garnered acclaim from

Questlove, Iggy Pop, Anthony Fantano, The Guardian, and countless others,

The Lemon Twigs—the New York City rock band fronted by brothers Brian and

Michael D’Addario—have once again captured the attention of the music

listening public. Set for release less than a year after their last album,

A Dream Is All We Know is a joyous affair. As the title suggests, it’s less

of a sober look at the darker side of life, and more a hopeful sojourn into

the realm of dreams.

Michael’s line in lead single and album opener “My Golden Years” – “In time

I hope that I can show all the world the love in my mind” – serves as a

statement of intent for the whole collection of songs, as the brothers race

against time to create as much quality pop material as possible. On track

two, The Lemon Twigs invite listeners into a bubblegum paradise with

euphoric harmonies and biting clavinet (“They Don’t Know How To Fall In

Place”), followed by an existential space age epic (“A Dream Is All I

Know”), and, elsewhere on the album, a baroque pocket-prog tune (“Sweet

Vibration”), a two-part nightmare-comedy that doesn’t let up (“Peppermint

Roses”), and more.

Equipped with the songwriting chops of a lost era (somewhere between The

Brill Building and 10452 Bellagio Road) the new record was carefully

arranged and produced entirely analog in the brothers’ Brooklyn recording

studio. Most of the tracks were constructed with the two brothers swapping

instruments and layering all the parts themselves, but one exception to

that rule was “In The Eyes Of The Girl,” which was co-produced by Sean Ono

Lennon in his upstate New York studio.

While the album is chock full of progressive pop ideas, it closes

appropriately with an ode to early rock and roll on “Rock On (Over and

Over),” contextualizing the band as part of a lineage of rock and roll

that’s never really stopped. For The Lemon Twigs, it took almost a decade

for critics and audiences alike to present them with the major accolades

they’ve earned this past year. While their initial records were appreciated

for the musical proficiency they displayed, the brothers’ past few records

have communicated their ideas with more clarity and emotional resonance. In

other words, “It took too long to say ‘rock on.’”