Lime Garden - Maybe Not Tonight

Like so many of the Very Best Bands, Lime Garden have never sounded all that bothered in getting their feelings into a tidy enough state to present them nicely. ‘Maybe Not Tonight’ doesn’t change that, thankfully, but it does make the whole thing hit harder. Breakups, nights that slip their leash and the dawning suspicion that your twenties might just be adolescence with extra admin, it’s all over this record, but rarely in a way that asks for sympathy.

‘23’ is all anticipation and internal aggro, Chloe Howard squaring up to her younger self over a bassline that moves like it thinks it has somewhere else it really ought to be. It’s one of the clearest signs of what album two gets right - the songs still twitch with that same infectious energy, but there’s more confidence in pushing an idea until it leaves a mark.

That confidence turns up in the playing as much as the writing. The guitars are chunkier and more willing to lunge without scrubbing away the band’s knack for sounding slightly wonky in exactly the right places. Lime Garden evolving was always on the cards, but they’re too awkward in the very best sense to become slick. Even when these songs thump, they still have a loose wire hanging out somewhere.

Nothing here feels like it’s been over-pasteurised into “clubby” or “cathartic” for effect. ‘Downtown Lover’ tears forward on nerve alone, while ‘Maybe Not Tonight’ carries itself like a bad choice you’re already halfway to making. ‘Cross My Heart’ has a snap that positively blurted out. Even when the hooks are immediate, there’s usually something in the delivery that stops them from settling into anything too polished.

Howard is nothing short of brilliant at that push-and-pull. She can make a single line sound accusatory and faintly embarrassed at the same time. ‘All Bad Parts’ takes one of the bleakest stretches behind the album and turns it into something sarcastic and weirdly buoyant. ‘Body’ goes for a softer bruise, while ‘Always Talking About You’ lets desire and humiliation fight it out. No grand breakthroughs here, just the horrible familiarity of knowing exactly what you’re doing wrong and carrying on regardless because, quite frankly, fuck it.

The album likes to keep moving, and on occasion that might mean a moment that should sting a bit more just barges through instead. But, on the other hand, that all-in quality is also why most of it works. It’s an album made from people writing through an emotional pile-up in real time. They don’t have the time nor the inclination to hold their own intervention along the way.

There’s something liberating in how little interest Lime Garden have in making themselves look noble here. Plenty of bands can do the aftermath album in a way that makes them look way more together than anyone ever actually is. ‘Maybe Not Tonight’ would rather admit that sometimes you feel petty, thirsty, jealous, delusional, hot, lonely and invincible in the space of about twenty minutes. Which, unfairly, is also why it feels so damn relatable.

Lime Garden don’t romanticise that state, but they don’t flinch from it either. They just turn it into songs big enough to throw your whole body at. Definitely messy will do nicely, thanks.