"I see the world for you / You see it different from how I do / I've heard it all before / Through your screen time / An open door..."
The stalking nature, emotional bloodletting, massive attack of "Perfect Too" by Boise, Idaho based alt rock three piece Blood Lemon and from their upcoming 2025 EP "Petite Deaths", feels like self reflected existential dread manifested as a brawl, maybe to the death. I love the heaviness here, the opening so exquisitely heavy metal, so f*cking gothic, hammers of sound slamming down against Lindsey Lloyd's stoic anchoring drum beat with bassist Melanie Radford handling vocals with supporting vocals by guitarist Lisa Simpson. I am loving Radford's vocal character, the emotional persona that had me thinking of an amalgam of PJ Harvey (circa To Bring You My Love) and Johnette Napolitano from Concrete Blonde (circa bloodletting).
"I see the world for you
You see it different from how I doI've heard it all before
Through your screen time
An open door
Rip and rip apart yourself
Listen to nobody else
I'm here to tell you what is sin
Self-indulge in self destruction"
Midway, "Perfect Too", becomes still but still brooding and then moments later explodes into a runaway, full throttle alt rocker with a thumping bass line and pounding drum beats as a framework for Lisa Simpson's evocative lead guitar work, sonically tubular, sinewy notes hanging in time and space. Love the arc of this song, the emotional weight.
"What's the matter with you?
Aren't you perfect too?
What's the matter with you?
Aren't you perfect too?"
LINER NOTES (bracketed excerpts):
[This is the first single from Blood Lemon's forthcoming EP, Petite Deaths. The band features current Built To Spill bassist/vocalist Melanie Radford, guitarist/vocalist Lisa Simpson, and drummer Lindsey Lloyd. Working alongside esteemed fuzz lord Dave Catching (Desert Sessions, Queens of the Stone Age, earthlings?) at the storied Rancho De La Luna studio, the band treated the sessions for the EP as a retreat rather than a routine visit to a recording studio. Blood Lemon, a mainstay of the Boise scene despite Radford’s recent move to nearby Seattle, received plenty of praise for their eponymous debut released in the throes of the pandemic. NPR Music, A.V. Club, SPIN, and other outlets of repute lauded their debut that garnered comparisons to other beloved female-fronted influences like Sleater-Kinney and The Breeders. Following celebrated appearances at Treefort Music Fest in their hometown as well as dates supporting avant-garage heavy hitters The Shivas and viral goth-punks Vision Video, the band crafted a collection of songs with widened emotional registers when Radford was on break from serving as the current bassist Built To Spill.]
[All three of Blood Lemon’s members are classically trained musicians, with decades of experience between them — so yeah, they’ve been around a while. As they live and work within Boise’s scene, which is re-energizing while also responding to the lessons of #MeToo, they take pride in the representation they embody. “It’s important that music not only be about The Youth,” Simpson says. Radford talks glowingly of first seeing The Breeders live, “not caring about anything onstage other than having fun — not being cute, not showmanship, nothin’.”]
- Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY_LZgZ0qN5GiP6ergjPyYA
\https://bloodlemon.bandcamp.com/album/petite-deaths
https://www.instagram.com/bloodlemonmusic
https://www.facebook.com/bloodlemonmusic
https://x.com/BloodLemon3
https://www.bloodlemonmusic.com/
When Boise three-piece Blood Lemon — singer/guitarist Lisa Simpson (Finn Riggins, Treefort Music Fest), singer/bassist Melanie Radford (Built to Spill, Marshall Poole) and percussionist Lindsey Lloyd (Tambalka) — formed, in 2018, out of a medley of mutual admiration, a cover band called Mostly Muff and a unanimous love of Kim Deal and 90s Riot Grrrl music, they had no idea they’d be writing a perfect soundtrack to kick off 2021. What they did know was that they were eager to play music with their fellow womxn; they wanted a sound informed by 90s stalwarts like Pixies, Hole and The Breeders; and they were ready to get political.
The resulting record, Blood Lemon’s self-titled debut, is a flinty 40-minute affair that tackles subjects like the inner journey of one song’s narrator toward becoming a whistleblower (“Whistleblower”) and running a toxic person out of town (“Burned”) with equal clarity and musical chops. Throughout, environmental (in)action is a theme that recurs. “Leave the Gaslight On” was inspired by Greta Thunberg’s speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and the political and economic realities (i.e. capitalism) that have led America not to take it seriously. “Black-Capped Cry” — a deft, heavy track that includes a bass riff inspired by the call of the black-capped chickadee — skewers both the lifestyle of limitless consumption and white colonialism. That tightness of focus in songwriting is well matched by production from Z.V. House of Boise’s Rabbitbrush Audio, a collaborator whose understanding of genre and ear for sonic layering burnished the band’s post-Riot Grrrl sound.
All three of Blood Lemon’s members are classically trained musicians, with decades of experience between them — so yeah, they’ve been around a while. As they live and work within Boise’s scene, which is re-energizing while also responding to the lessons of #MeToo, they take pride in the representation they embody. “It’s important that music not only be about The Youth,” Simpson says. Radford talks glowingly of first seeing The Breeders live, “not caring about anything onstage other than having fun — not being cute, not showmanship, nothin’.”
Listening to the record, it’s clear the ladies of Blood Lemon have brought that same ethos to writing and recording their debut. Their emphasis on reveling in each others’ company while bringing A-level musicianship is the perfect counterweight to the record’s headier themes. They seriously shred through tracks like “Master Manipulator” — which the band mapped on a whiteboard while recording to make sure they didn’t forget any of the collection of Mel’s riffs the song is constructed from — without ever sinking into self-seriousness. If you, too, find yourself ready to get political, you couldn’t ask for a more apt soundtrack than Blood Lemon’s cathartic good time.
Blood Lemon, Boise Idaho, Seattle, alt rock, metal, sludge pop, fusion, blended, post punk, "Perfect Too" Official Video, upcoming 2025 EP "Petite Deaths", Melanie Radford, Lisa Simpson, Lindsey Lloyd,
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