(Memphis Industries) Related: Menace Beach: 'You need this many people to make this much noise' Even in an era in which 90s revivalism is the default mode,Ratworld, the debut album from Leeds sort-of-supergroup Menace Beach, and felt particularly beholden to its influences: Dinosaur Jr,Pavement, Galaxie 500 et al. Yes, or it was a lovingly constructed facsimile,fuzz-swaddled and full of hooks, but a facsimile nevertheless. agreeable bands soon glean bored of such mimicry, and though,and follow-up album Lemon Memory sees Menace Beach expand their horizons. Its title is taken from the idea of a “lemon curse”, which bandleaders Liza Violet and Ryan Needham believe was placed on their house. Such crazy occultism sets the scene for an album dabbling in mind-expanding psych (Can’t glean a Haircut), or motorik (the excellent Suck It Out) and the more outre edges of 80s and 90s indie. At times,things glean impressively creepy – witness Maybe You Drown, which pairs Violet’s chiming vocals with a ghostly organ to create a nightmarish indie nursery rhyme. But all the while Violet and Needham maintain the keen eye for a bubblegum refrain that their early work exhibited. An impressive leap forwards.
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Source: theguardian.com