Menace Beach – Lemon Memory

Leeds’ own Menace Beach certainly manage to live up their name; seemingly comfortable surroundings with lashing of suspicion and that sense of the uncanny.

Wrapping a classic rock sound in a modern psych blanket, the young quintet have shown some impressive progression on Lemon Memory, following from 2015’s Ratworld. Opener Give Blood comes on like a transfusion of clean stuff to a dying nervous system; it’s necessary, vital and refreshing.

Menace Beach gain a lot from the distinctive nasal vocal style of former Komakino frontman Ryan Needham, and when he becomes largely absent the record suffers as a result. Can’t Get A Haircut is crunching but lacking a voice – literally and figuratively – to take it even higher.

But when they strike gold, they hit it hard. The album’s eponymous track is a distorted circus big top of drone, hazy chords and thudding repetition that can leave a listener breathless.

Listen to: Give Blood, Lemon Memory