It’s 40 years since THE MIGHTY LEMON DROPS released their Stephen Street produced debut album, Happy Head, and became one of the C86 darlings. Hailing from Wolverhampton and formed from the ashes of Active Restraint in 1985, initially called the Sherbert Monsters, they lined up as AR former members Paul Marsh on vocals, bassist Tony Linehan and guitarist David Newton (who had played alongside Neil Cook in The Wild Flowers) with Keith Rowley (who replaced Martin Wilks) on drums. Although it peaked at 58, charting for two weeks. and neither of its singles, made the top 60 (their sophomore album World Without End reached 34), their punky psychedelia ringing Rickenbacker sound and Echo and the Bunnymen/Teardrop Explodes comparisons saw them achieve greater success in America where it was named one of the 50 best albums of the year.
Opening in driving style with The Other Side Of You and featuring such similarly powered gems as My Biggest Thrill, Take Me Up, the bass dominant All The Way and a rerecording of their signature initial indie hit Like An Angel alongside slower tracks Hypnotised. Pass You By and the Byrdsian On My Mind, it’s an enduring classic of its time and remains fresh today. To mark the anniversary, it’s being released as a remastered limited Dinked Archive edition vinyl in marbled red and black with two bonus tracks, Something Happens and Now She’s Gone, previously released, as was the original Like An Angel, on Dan Treacy’s Dreamworld Records label.
Linehan, Marsh and Rowley are still knocking around but, as far as I can tell, only Dave, now based in Burbank. has sustained a music industry career, both as a producer and recording as Thee Mighty Angels, whose Paint The Town EP and A Gateway to a Lifetime of Disappointment album are well worth discovering. For a detailed look at the Drops career check out https://writewyattuk.com/2022/11/18/moving-inside-out-with-the-mighty-lemon-drops-the-david-newton-interview
A multi-instrumentalist sextet drawing comparison to – but less improvisational and with more vocals than fellow Brummies The Bonfire Radicals, JUNIPER line up as Dominic O’Sullivan on whistles, sax and woodwinds, flautist Emily Hicks, violinist Anna Vaughan, Rob Roberts on bass drummer Aidan Hammond, and Harry Thorpe from Thorpe & Morrison on baritone guitar and lead vocals. They’re joined on percussion, bodhran and programming by producer Cormac Byrne for self-released sophomore album Halfway Home, a fusion of Celtic, americana, funk, rock and house inspired by reflections of time on the road and connections to the countryside and Birmingham’s industrial landscapes.
The tracks are a mix of self-penned, covers and the traditional, kicking off with a six-minute plus reading of Breton traditional The Wren, an an dro (a tune to accompany a traditional Breton circle dance) that opens like a cosmic dawn rising orchestral fanfare with woodwind and drums gathering the momentum.
Credited to Sean McCarthy who based it on a children’s skipping-song from Kanturk, driven by Vaughan’s fiddle and thumping drums and ending unaccompanied, Step It Out Mary is a propulsive traditional Irish ballad, its upbeat music al nature at odds with its telling of how her father forces Mary to wed a wealthy countryman despite being in love with a soldier, she later found drowned alongside him on her wedding day.
The first original, from O’Sullivan and Thorpe, is the woodwind-led jittery pizzicato rhythm instrumental The Junction, another that, named for the infamous Spaghetti Junction (which features on the album cover) builds in sound, funkiness and pace as it progresses, leading to a Celtic-shaded cover of John Hartford’s In Tall Buildings, a weary lament about being forced to leave the countryside to conform and work in the city.
The scurrying title track, a fusion of Niall Kenney’s Trip To Pakistan and O’Sullivan’s Joyreel, marks the mid-point with its bodhran percussion and woodwinds, the musical mood sifting with the repeating baritone guitar notes and flute of Thorpe’s joyous Zimbabwean-tinted instrumental Trajectory.
The second traditional, initially sung a capella, Thorpe on lead and the others harmonising, before guitar and drums kick in, is, flute taking a solo, Ulster’s The Flower of Magherally, the rest of the album all being instrumentals. First up is O’Sullivan’s choppy, whistles and guitar Hare & House, followed by Catharsis, a traditional-styled Irish reel by Vermont fiddler Amy Cann that, O’Sullivan on alto flute, again builds in tempo as it gathers to a climax, and finally, there’s Thorpe’s percussion-building, wonderfully chaotic Morris-like dance tune A Brace Of Yari inspired by Vaughan’s two Toyota Yaris cars. Rev it up.
Hunt and an off-kilter 7/4 time signature, captures early Kasabian and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club through an Enio Morricone lens. It comes with two contrasting B‑sides, the propulsive, echoing shoegaze of Sweet Angel and the guitars ringing All Because Of You with its Velvet Underground and The Stone Roses.
