FOUNDERS’ KEEPERS: Leslie Mendelson, Lemon Twigs, Fastball, and More

We’ve hit the middle of 2024, and first-rate new albums seem to be coming fast and furious. Here’s a look at five of my favorites released in May and June, all of which may well end up on my year-end top ten.

Leslie Mendelson — After the Party

I’ll admit up front that I’m WAY late to her party, but it’s my contention that After the Party is the best album released so far this year. Leslie Mendelson has been making records since 2005; I was unaware of her until 2021, when Jackson Browne brought her onstage at his 2021 taping of Austin City Limits for a duet on a song they co-wrote. A few months later, I heard her and accompanist Steve McEwan play a short set at Willie Nelson’s ranch, and she instantly won me over. “Rock and Roll on the Radio” was the first song I heard her sing that day, and to my ears it’s an instant classic. But the joy of hearing After the Party was that “Rock and Roll on the Radio” is just one of the album’s many high points.

The early single “Other Girls” is a compelling rocker with a surprising lyrical twist, while the title track slows things down to revel in the lingering highs of a weekend soiree with good friends. (Plus a note-perfect classic-pop reference: “After the party, the music’s not over / The jukebox is playing ‘Crimson and Clover’/ And I don’t wanna go home.”) The list of people who helped Mendelson make After the Party seems almost incredulous: The album’s three producers are the legendary Peter Asher (Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, 10,000 Maniacs), rising star Tyler Chester (Madison Cunningham, Sara Watkins), and her longtime guitarist McEwan, who’s won Grammys as a songwriter with Jon Batiste. And then there’s the band, which includes L.A. living legends such as guitarist Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Jim Keltner. They’re all there because they recognize Mendelson for the major talent that she is. It took me too long to get here, but I’m glad to have joined them in that assessment.

Lemon Twigs — A Dream Is All We Know

Twentysomething Long Island brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario were still teenagers when they started releasing records about a decade ago, and they’ve consistently delivered on their young-pop-prodigies promise ever since. Despite their New York upbringing, their sound has always felt more West Coast to me; certainly they wear their love for the Beach Boys on their sleeves, though there are also early Beatles sensibilities to some of their songs (notably “Church Bells” here).

A Dream Is All We Know kicks off grandly with “My Golden Years,” which acknowledges their classic-pop roots and plays it up with a video in which they humorously get turned away from L.A.’s legendary Troubadour club by a bouncer. On “In the Eyes of the Girl,” they cleverly underscore the Beatles connection by bringing aboard Sean Ono Lennon as guest guitarist and co-producer (though the song’s vibe is ultimately more ’50s than ’60s). “Ember Days” is one of the brothers’ most musically adventurous compositions to date, with a melody that defies predictability the way that legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb often swerved in and out of standard keys. Everything here (with the exception of that Ono Lennon cameo) was played by the two brothers, who also co-produced. The rise of these pop wunderkinds has been one of the most welcome developments in 21st-century American music.

Fastball — Sonic Ranch

The Austin trio that hit it big a quarter-century ago with the smash hits “The Way” and “Out of My Head” seemed like they were pretty much done after 2009’s Little White Lies. Co-leaders Miles Zuniga and Tony Scalzo each released solo projects, while drummer Joey Shuffield played Austin clubs regularly with Jon Dee Graham and others. But they reunited to make 2017’s surprisingly strong Step Into Light, and they got on a major roll with 2019’s The Help Machine and 2022’s The Deep End. Now comes Sonic Ranch, which gets its name from the West Texas studio where Fastball recorded these 10 tracks with producers David Garza and John Fields.

Scalzo continues to serve up instantly connecting power-pop hits such as the album-opening “Rather Be Me Than You” and “Let Love Back In Your Heart.” Meanwhile, Zuniga’s writing has increasingly grown more sophisticated and confident, as evident on the psych-tinged second track “Daydream” and the sociopolitical “America” (in which Zuniga suggests that “America is hard to see, if you only see it on TV.”) He strips things down for the acoustic ballad “Grey Sky Blue,” previously released as a digital single by fellow Austin singer-songwriter Pat Byrne, while Scalzo shines on his own solo track with the piano-centered closer “I’ll Be On My Way.” Fastball still tours regularly, and even if fans may come to hear the old stuff, they might well be surprised at just how much great new material the band has gathered lately.

Bess Atwell — Light Sleeper

You never know just where you might find a new favorite artist. For me, it was in the middle of an open field in the English countryside south of London, where I’d traveled to see the great Oregon band The Delines perform at a music festival. Arriving about an hour before they played, I caught the last few songs of Atwell’s set and was transfixed by her voice. Recollections of the great Paula Frazer from the 1990s Bay Area band Tarnation arose as Atwell’s radiant voice floated across the festival grounds. Later, listening to Light Sleeper — her third full-length release — I heard echoes of Sally Ellyson from my longtime Brooklyn favorites Hem. Ultimately, though, Atwell has very much her own sound, and definitely her own personality as a songwriter.

That the album sounds fantastic will be of no surprise to anyone who checks the credits and finds The National’s Aaron Dessner aboard as producer. The boldly titled opening track “Everyone Who’s Not in Love With You Is Wrong” is a highlight, as are the exquisite if emotionally draining “The Weeping” and the clear-eyed, ill-fated romanticism of “I Am Awake” (“I don’t want to let you love me until you don’t”). But mostly, Light Sleeper is so affecting because of how beautifully and naturally it flows from start to finish.

Jim Cuddy — All the World Fades Away

As co-leader of Canadian band Blue Rodeo, Cuddy has released 16 studio albums since the late 1980s. But sometimes the songs he writes end up feeling better-suited to solo projects, and so in 1998 he began releasing occasional records under his own name as well. All the World Fades Away is his sixth solo album, and I’d say it’s his best, simply because the songs are so strong across the board. If you’ve liked Blue Rodeo’s records across the decades, you’ll almost certainly hear similar qualities here; indeed, the players include a couple of Blue Rodeo members (bassist Bazil Donovan and guitarist Colin Cripps), while Cuddy’s BR co-leader Greg Keelor adds vocals on the track “Everyday Angels.”

The first song written for the record, “Good News,” is one of the album’s best tracks; written during the early days of the pandemic, its chorus seeks hope in dark times with the assurance that “I know we’ll get through it, we just gotta hear some good news.” But it rings true amid tumultuous sociopolitical times that continue. While Cuddy acknowledges that “there’s damage that surely will last,” he continues by singing that “I hope we have learned not to slip back to ways of the past.” Musically, Cuddy puts his best moment right up front: “Learn to Live Alone” isn’t so much about a breakup as about a long separation, and it rings true with chiming guitars and the kind of exquisite, easily singable melody that has always made Cuddy one of the finest roots-rockers of our time.