There's an aural poignancy that runs throughout
Lionlimb's compelling sophomore album, 2018's six-track
Tape Recorder. While the Nashville-based duo of singer/songwriter Stewart Bronaugh and drummer Joshua Jaeger have always evinced a sun-dappled, '60s brand of emotionality, the added poignancy on
Tape Recorder can, at least in part, be explained by the group's slightly different recording process this time out. Fresh off their European tour,
Lionlimb settled into a studio at New York's Columbia University (and later, the Relic Room studio) where they began crafting these layered, classical chamber-inflected songs. While the core of the band's sound still centers on Bronaugh's hushed, poetic vocals, they've expanded their indie rock approach with Bronaugh setting pen to staff paper to score his expansive arrangements. Along with swirling guitar and basslines, he weaves in organic amounts of cello, violin, and bass clarinet. The result builds nicely upon the group's heretofore psychedelia-dipped brand of indie rock, and retains much of their longstanding devotion to the late singer/songwriter
Elliott Smith. This atmospheric, bedroom orchestral aesthetic also brings to mind more vintage touchstones like
Nick Garrie's 1969 cult-classic
The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas, and even some of
Donovan's more esoteric recordings. Cuts like the kaleidoscopic "Swallow's Song" and "Clover," with its half-lidded string hits and staggered drum pattern, sound a bit like
Radiohead if they'd recorded in the late '60s. Similarly, the moody, piano-driven title track, with its cinematic string parts and pounding, rock-infused outro conjures
S.F. Sorrow-era
Pretty Things, and the languid "Star Mangled" evokes early
Todd Rundgren. ~ Matt Collar