Lemuria returns this year with a new album, continuing their alt-rock/punk stylings with their latest Pebble. Their last album, Get Better, was an incredibly strong top to bottom throwback to great guy/girl power-punk/pop rock that we used to hear a lot in the early 90s. For the new album the band has definitely taken a bit more of a measured and mature approach to a lot of the songs, and while it doesn’t result in the same kinds of memorable hooks that littered the last record, it produces some really strong tracks and is a nice change of pace for the band.

The last album was really done for the most part at breakneck speed, and involved a lot of quick, short bursts of song that were memorable but not necessarily heavily developed or fleshed out. They kind of burst through your headphones and grabbed your ear and then were gone just as quickly. Here there are a few moments like that once again (“Chautauqua County”, “Bloomer”), but there are also some less direct songs. This album is also much darker and seemingly introspective than the last album. The last album featured a lot of alienation and strife, but it was all sort of coated in a playful and boisterous wall of noise. Here, the songs seem to simmer and stew a little bit more and in that sense they become a little more dramatic.

While some of the band’s material on the album doesn’t seem to fit quite as well or be suited to a more drawn out approach, it also allows the band to further develop some of the more pernsive sections of the last album resulting in meandering gems like “Ribcage” and “Durian”, which draw out some more layered emotion and feeling than the flash in the pan power-punk jams we got from the band on the last record. Even songs that still retain some of those Lemuria-sound hallmarks like “The One” manage to have a more textured feeling to them.

I think ultimately, the first half of the record stutters a bit for me as the band kind of tries to find their stride between the 2:30 power-punk blitz and a more metered approach, but on the second half of the record, the band really hits their stride and nails some songs showing that they can really develop some more complex song structures and ideas. The album may come off a bit jumpy, but really once “Ribcage” kind of slowly flows through its four-plus minutes, you can kind of see a lot more where the band is going, and it makes the rest of the record just pull together nicely. Not quite as memorable or hook-laden as their last album, but still showing some real strong songwriting and a strong sense of melody building up another solid collection of songs.

“Chautauqua County” by Lemuria from Pebble