Tag: Chapterhouse

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Darkly Surreal Visuals and Shimmering Shoegazer Rock of Dead Leaf Echo’s “Lemonheart”

“Lemonheart,” will further cement their burgeoning reputation for crafting lush and shimmering shoegazer-like dream pop in the vein of RIDE, Swervedriver and Slowdive — or in other words, layers upon layers of shimmering guitar chords played through gentle amounts of reverb, a propulsive motorik-like groove paired with ethereal and wistful vocals.

The recently released video for “Lemonheart” employs a surreal and nightmarish logic as it features a beautiful young woman selling lemonade at a child’s lemonade stand, cutting lemons for lemonade, and occasionally sucking on a lemon when she encounters a man dressed as a lemon mascot, who’s devastated upon seeing the carnage inflicted on his fellow lemons. Running away, he encounters a female lemon who captures his attention and they return to get revenge on our lemonade stand girl.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you will likely be pretty familiar with the Brooklyn-based music and art collective Dead Leaf Echo. The band has a growing national and international profile as they’ve made appearances at SXSW, CMJ, NXNE, Northside Festival and the Beautiful Noise Festival, toured with and/or played one off shows with The Wedding Present, A Place to Bury Strangers, . . . And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, The Psychedelic Furs, Chapterhouse, Ulrich Schnauss, Weekend, Lorelei, The Ocean Blue, The Warlocks, Beach Fossils, and The Telescopes. They’ve had a number of singles top CMJ’s Top 20 Indie charts and have appeared on renowned indie station KEXP‘s John in the Morning twice, and on Nic Harcourt’s KCSN show. 

Their 4AD Records-inspired full-length debut Thought and Language, a concept album that followed a child from his conception, through birth until he grasps thought and language was released to critical praise across the blogosphere. The follow-up to their debut full-length, true.deep.sleeper was produced by Monte Vallier, who’s best known for his work with Weekend and Wax Idols was released last year.

Currently, the members of Dead Leaf Echo are in the studio working on their sophomore full-length effort, with Vallier taking up production duties. But in the meantime, the band released a 7 inch single last month and made an appearance at the Desert Stars Festival on a bill that included Swervedriver and The Lemonheads. “Lemonheart” is the first single from the 7 inch and the song reveals a subtle change in their songwriting arppaoch as the gorgeously shimmering guitar chords jangle so subtly and are paired with forceful percussion and ethereal vocals floating just above the mix, while still remaining faithful to the shoegaze sound that has captured the attention of the blogosphere.