Despite it being over 10 years since there’s been anything new from Lemon Jelly, I’ve never stopped listening to their music, and always hoped there might be something more.
The creative duo behind the band, Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen have declared the band ‘on hiatus’, and moved onto a myriad of other creative outlet, mainly outside the world of music. But hurrah! Fred is back with a CD by his new band, The Lasters. Lots of the old Lemon Jelly trademarks are there, but this is now a band, with a string of live dates planned.
The album is a good old fashioned concept album, in the tradition of The Who’s Quadraphenia or Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. On The Lasters’ album, climate crisis meets nuclear disaster to bring the planet to the brink of extinction. It tells tells the story of the earth’s final family, in an epic science fiction story.
It’s Fred’s first foray into proper song-writing and singing, and along with three other vocalists, including Charlotte Hathersay, ex of Ash, they have made is a superb album to start off 2020. The forthcoming live dates promise all four vocalists and a fusion of the projection mapped animations, which were such a big a feature of the Lemon Jelly gigs.
Standout tracks for me are ‘I Remember’, with its slowly building music and beautiful vocals over a floating bass line, and the first single ‘The End Of The World’, Music for the new decade indeed, and one which I’ll still be playing for a good part of it I’m sure.
8/10