With each release, Lime Garden continue to further their reputation as ‘ones to watch’ - with a host of tips behind them from NME to The Independent, BBC 6music to KEXP, and even Johnny Marr to Hayley Williams.

Across Maybe Not Tonight, the exhilarating second album from Lime Garden (released via So Young Records), the intensity of the Brighton four-piece’s writing winds itself into bolts from the blue. The pleasures and perils of partying serve as a thematic through-line, tracking the arc of a night out where unplanned adventures hold sway, fresh impulses are inhabited feverishly, and only the rush matters.

“Being bolder and not shying away from our experiences, that’s what this album sounds like to us,” says lead guitarist Leila Deeley, who forms Lime Garden alongside Chloe Howard (singer, guitar), plus Annabel Whittle (drums, production) and Tippi Morgan (bass). “It’s a real statement. Listening to it should feel like a big punch in the face!”

Produced by Charlie Andrew (Wolf Alice, alt-J), with additional production from drummer Annabel Whittle, Maybe Not Tonight reflects the band’s rapid evolution. Glitchy vocal fragments, hypnotic drum lines, garage-rock guitars, detuned synths and even bongos weave together into immersive, richly detailed songs. Many began life as Whittle’s home-produced demos, drawing influence from Bon Iver, A.G. Cook, and Jim-E Stack, while pulling from a wide pool of inspirations including Magdalena Bay, The Breeders, St. Vincent, and New Order.

Maybe Not Tonight sees four young women band together to find their own conviction in unsteady circumstances, producing their most intoxicating and luminous material to date. Where their critically-acclaimed 2024 debut One More Thing bottled the live energy they built a reputation for at festivals like Glastonbury and Green Man, its follow-up expands their signature brand of “wonk-pop” upwards and outwards.

Across the record, particularly on tracks like ‘Body’, ‘Lifestyle’ and ‘All Bad Parts’, Lime Garden confront the uneasy process of trying to change personal habits and face uncomfortable truths. “Part of the ethos of the record is about addressing, rather than ignoring, all the shitty things you’ve done,” Howard explains. “You have to actually face up to yourself.”

At its core, Maybe Not Tonight is a communal outpouring: “By making this record, we’ve come back to what it felt like when we started the band. When we were 17 and thought we were the shit, and nobody could tell us different. We’ve got this fresh feeling that we deserve to be here. That’s a special thing.”

Andrew Cushin

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