One More Thing by Lime Garden
Remember how the music media heralded another “British Invasion” back when Oasis and Blur were young and supposedly rivalrous? Well, Brighton, England quartet Lime Garden isn’t carrying the lantern for another attempt; instead, its debut full-length, One More Thing, is more like a passport.
Granted entry, the band doesn’t make itself ostentatiously present the way those Britpop groups did, or the way later would-be invaders like the Darkness tried to do. Yet the opener, “Love Song,” moves with the cool confidence of rock ‘n’ roll that knows it can swing and needn’t shout about it.
Singer and rhythm guitarist Chloe Howard puts that confidence forward whether or not her words do the same. The emotional openness of her voice isn’t unlike that of Throwing Muses frontwoman Kristin Hersh, with a very strong reminder of how powerfully simple John Lennon could be.
That Lennon-like quality comes through in a moodier track like “Pine,” in which a few phased and backwards guitar notes, a rising pattern of keyboard dots, and Tippi Morgan’s down-low bassline create hypnotic murkiness that weighs upon philosophical observations like “Everybody wants compassion, but no one seems to feel.”
Besides Morgan, Howard can rely upon drummer Annabel Whittle to keep the beat as if hearing the universal metronome and upon lead guitarist Leila Deeley to broaden and enrich the palette of musical colors without bleeding into modern-pop oversaturation or art-rock fussiness.
With production from Ali Chant—who’s engineered records by M. Ward and PJ Harvey, two other artistes with whom this band might bear comparison in future—Lime Garden expands upon the Breeders’ pop-punk disaffection with “Nepotism (Baby),” throws a Charli XCX sneer and wink at current hitmaking trends with “Floor,” and becomes as barrenly honest as Nick Drake on “Looking.”
One More Thing is that rare first LP that can make a listener crave Beatlesian profligacy from a band. It’s inviting, not invasive.
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