#iknowthatthisisvitriol

[lemondice]

I Know That This Is Vitriol!

Hi all, this week marks another exciting creative release for me, as my band Lemon Knife’s second full-length album came out on Monday!  You can find it on lemonknife.bandcamp.com, stream it at https://open.spotify.com/album/23dO6hen0Nx0FiaVqxWlCI, or hear it anywhere you find music online. I thought I’d write this week’s post talking about the album and some of the inspirations and themes on it.

Let’s start with the title - after we had a few songs together for the album I knew that it was going to be a more political album and certainly one that still had a dark tone.  Our debut, Songs About Water and Death, was also somewhat dark, but while it had some political songs it had more of an introspective feel; our EP In Our Darkest Sour was political but through more of a historical lens.  IKTTIV is more direct, and also is written with something more like a call to action in mind, on songs like Thunder Owed and You Can’t Shrug Your Way to Valhalla.  I didn’t want to just complain about how things are but rather also encourage people to take action.  So the title itself is a quote from R.E.M.’s anti-Reagan classic Ignoreland: “I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen venting...but I feel better having screamed, don’t you?”  My intent is that this is a big climactic venting of political and societal frustration, and that our next album might switch tacks a little, possibly musically but definitely lyrically. (Hopefully our next album’s release will also see slightly less frustrating leaders in charge, of course)

The songs themselves were written throughout 2019 - Thunder Owed was the first wholly new song we wrote for the new album around the start of the year, while Whaler’s Widow and The Day We Took Our Country Back were the last couple written and recorded towards the end of November.  We’ve got a wide range of songs on this album - we definitely experimented with some different sounds, from the soft-loud 90s style of I Will Remember (which was also a lyrical challenge to myself - I wanted to see if I could write a good set of lyrics without my typical wordiness) to the almost dancey, repetitive groove of Whaler’s Widow or the dramatic temposhift in Endless City.  The songs were all recorded and produced by CJ Johnson, who we’ve worked with on all of our releases so far - we love his no-nonsense, productive studio approach and he has a knack for finding great effects to add to the bass and vocals.

A few notes on individual songs:

Dirty Life and Times of a Gun: I never get sick of listening to this song - this is one where we started with the lyrics and built a song around them.  I was inspired by Murder by Death’s style (they also get a song title shoutout elsewhere on the album!) to try and write a murder ballad, and then to add a twist I left the ending unknown.  Mia was in turn inspired by the western theme to add a slide to her bass, giving this one a really fresh feel.  We both loved it enough to make it the lead track.

Vultures: Probably my favorite song on the album to play on drums - this one is a real killer live!

The Old Bastard Will Be Missed: This was actually written in the very early days of Lemon Knife, but only the first half - I liked the concept but the song itself was a little lacking.  We decided to revisit this and add a second half to make it a little more fleshed out, and the result was interesting enough to keep!

Broken Ankle, Broken Mind: Mia wrote the lyrics here, and they’re great - it’s awesome to see her pushing some new lyrical frontier and tackling something really controversial and direct that means a lot to her.

Whaler’s Widow: This is our 2nd or 3rd attempt to make a song people can dance to - I’m still not sure if it fully succeeded at that, but I love Mia’s vocal melody and delivery on the finale.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to give the album a listen - we’re quite proud with how the songs turned out!  Next post I’ll be back with the year in review.