A rich, traditional sound underpins an undeniably talented singer-songwriter who’s unafraid to explore her rockier edge.
After the release of her last album “Moonth” in August of 2020, Merce Lemon decided to take a step back in order to reassess her relationship with music itself outside of the industry surrounding it. It was still a time of lockdowns and uncertainty as far as live music went, but Lemon looked not just to herself, but also back to nature, and by sleeping “outside most of the summer”, learning “a lot about plants” and even getting “dirty”, she discovered that sometimes the roots that run deep underground can be the most inspiring for roots music and channelled that energy into “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild”.
Lemon’s voice has a truly ethereal quality; airy and delicate in one moment, stabbing like a knife to the heart the next. “There’s seeds between all of my teeth / I’ve been eating like the birds / So maybe I’ll grow wings / Wouldn’t that be something,” she opens on ‘Birdseed’, a lilting, sweet slice of her time spent living more at one with nature. ‘Backyard Lover’ explores the precious, unsure beginnings of a new relationship through to its somewhat inevitable end, the lyrics as dark and messy as the reverb that goes on to accompany them. “A wooden spoon tossed in the fire / ‘Cause nothing’s good enough,” Lemon bemoans, adding with a snarl of contempt: “You fucking liar / You, you fucking liar.”
On ‘Window’, Lemon manages to set her words out in a way that is both stark, yet poetically impactful: “I’m not your body anymore / But this crying at your door / I’m not made like that,” she tells a former lover, unflinching. Although all the songs on the album have more than a trace of it, ‘Foolish and Fast’, invoking hazy memories of teenage years spent drinking at the beach, leans most into being a full-on indie-rock shoegaze anthem, even as Lemon sings that her “tapes are blasting a country song”. ‘Crow’ sees Lemon take a meditative role, watching the flock of birds and wondering how they might live beside her: “I’d make a city of this ghost town / Even let the crows come / Rest their necks and nest their young.” “I smell the wood / Lime zest on a bed of leaves / Frozen over by the creek,” Lemon sings gently on the title track, her words evocative of winter in the wilderness. “I write my words down honest,” she adds, plain, true and honest indeed.
“You can call this heaven / ‘Cause all the money is buried / Deep below our feet / You wonder how the fruit / Got so sweet,” marvels Lemon on ‘Blueberry Heaven’, a simple ode to the beauty of the natural world, but also, one that reflects the bountiful creative energy she draws from the earth of which things grow. So, whether she be out on the road, or in the quiet community of Pittsburgh that she grew up in and still calls home, may inspiration continue to find her, because the world needs more artists that understand the best music comes from the ground up.
