After a whirlwind 2023, the D’Addarios are continuing the momentum of their own evolving vision and voice, with the release of A Dream Is All We Know, their 2024 LP out May 3 on Captured Tracks.
Garnering the top-to-bottom critical acclaim the brothers have long deserved, their 2023 LP Everything Harmony was praised by the likes of Questlove, Iggy Pop, Anthony Fantano, The Guardian and countless others, and was the kind of record that put all of Brian and Michael’s talents on display - be it the former’s multi-instrumentalist gifts or the latter’s pop-rock charisma and eye for engineering and vocal layering. But unlike the acoustic, nylon string-based melancholia of Everything Harmony, A Dream Is All We Know is a joyous affair; less of a sober look at the darker side of life, and more a hopeful sojourn into the realm of dreams. It’s a return to the form The Lemon Twigs first introduced on Do Hollywood - an electric guitar-centric, anthemic assemblage of the band’s 1968 sound, with exceptionally prodigious songwriting and recording techniques that have vastly improved over the course of five albums.
Made with analogue precision, A Dream Is All We Know was finished in the immediate months after the band completed Everything Harmony. Equipped with the songwriting chops of a lost era (somewhere between NYC’s Brill Building and 10452 Bellagio Road in LA) the new record was carefully arranged and produced entirely analogue in the brothers’ Brooklyn recording studio on period specific equipment. Usually, the record-making process is just the two of them in a room together, trying to get to a place where they can nail their vocal tracks in one take - but they admit that repetition isn’t ever a detriment. “[Everything Harmony] has a lot more composite vocals but, as far as the background vocals, we get quicker and quicker, just because we get in the swing of things,” he says. “If we can repeat ourselves, it’s a good thing - because there’s always so much going on. It sounds more focused, if we do the same thing twice. At least twice.”
“Our angle for the past two albums has been us coming at it from this place of writing a song and, regardless of how it’s produced or how you treat it, the melody and chord structure has to be unique,” Michael continues. “Whether or not it’s in the same style as one of your old songs is really arbitrary. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s an inventive way of looking at the melody. And, if you really liked the way you treated one song with production, I don’t see why it would matter if you did it again. The Ramones treated most songs the same way; what’s new is the song.”
One of the exceptions to their usual process was “In The Eyes Of The Girl,” co-produced by Sean Ono Lennon in his upstate New York studio, which had the brothers tracking drums and piano while Lennon handled bass duties. It’s the most explicit exploration of a new genre that The Lemon Twigs have drummed up: Mersey Beach, the imaginary place between Liverpool and Laurel Canyon. Pairing the folk and chamber-pop roots of the Wilson family and the timeless tropes of the Lennon-McCartney songbook, the Mersey Beach movement is sure to catch on (though that fact remains to be seen).
Lead single “My Golden Years” arrives with a sense of urgency, in part from the jangly 12-string guitars and driving drums, but also from the anxiety of a narrator who can feel their “golden years” slipping away from them. The stand-still line “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, as the brothers race against time to create as much quality pop material as possible. “They Don’t Know How To Fall In Place” propels the album forward into bubblegum paradise with its euphoric harmonies and biting clavinet, while Brian kaleidoscopic vocal sings about a relationship never getting off on the right footing: “And I didn’t have a clue of what I was getting into. It’s a common theme, we don’t know how to fall in place.” Not to mention the fun Mersey Beat pun tucked within the lyrics, using famous drummer Ringo’s name in a song that conflates images of the west side of Manhattan with the atmosphere of northern England.
A Dream Is All We Know flourishes in the small details, introducing new instruments at every turn: as Michael sings “ring goes the bell” on the Roy Wood inspired “Church Bells,” the drummer switches to the bell of the ride cymbal and the song reveals itself as a pop tone poem, complete with cellos, mandolin and trumpets, all played by Brian. “Peppermint Roses” erupts with a menacing Farfisa into a two-part nightmare comedy, while the peaceful, sparser “Ember Days,” is propelled by a meditative nylon string pattern that’s part bossa nova, part Nick Drake. On “How Can I Love Her More,” it sounds like the percussion is coming from one stereo drum set in both ears. But, it’s actually two mono drum kits — one being played in each ear — alongside blaring horns, adventurous bass lines, theremin, flutes, and harpsichord. It’s a kitchen sink approach, full of left turns, but never bordering on cacophony.
It’s also on “How Can I Love Her More” that the thematic backbone of the album comes out: “Love isn’t something you know,” he sings out. “The more you choose it, you’re bound to lose it.” A Dream Is All We Know finds the D'Addarios wrestling with loss—but not in such a concrete, tangible sense. Relationships end, people grow older, the world keeps turning. It can be insurmountable at times but, as Michael sings on “If You and I Are Not Wise,” “I wish that someone would tell me what my soul knows that I don’t know.” At this stage in their career, the Lemon Twigs are familiarly curious, seeking out the same kind of answers that even the most accessible and beloved pop songs of yesteryear also dared to find. “I wish that someone could tell me what my soul knows that I don’t know,” Brian says, “There’s definitely an escapist bend to this album. Joyous music can take you out of the world when things get too heavy, which everyone needs sometimes. ”
While the album is chock full of progressive pop instrumentation, 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. In every decade there have been bands that have put their own spin on the music and “push(ed) it on down to the line.” But none have done it with the attention to detail and raw talent of these brothers. 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.’”