The Lemon of Pink – The Books ★★★

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2003	The Lemon of Pink	The Books	★★★	63	Electronic	Folk	Indietronic

The Book’s The Lemon of Pink is an odd, experimental record that mixes a lot of samples and electronic bleeps with some folk sounding acoustic guitars, live instruments and occasional vocals. 

There’s a lot going on within each song and on different sections of the album, that each moment can really bring you to a new place. There are some moments that are up beat or happy, moments that are darker or more reflective, some childlike elements, some that are really artistic and orchestral, and some that are pretty random and glitchy. They put you through a whole range of emotions and sounds and styles, but while being grounded in the way they do it. 

It’s pretty fun, and for an album that is this sample heavy and electronic, there’s a lot of life and humanity in it. I specifically enjoy all of the songs where they use the guitar to simulate a harpsichord, like “Tokyo.” “Take Time” is probably the most likey song to be picked as a single, if radio stations were ever to play short, experimental electronic rock songs, that is. 

Overall, I don’t think there’s anything on here that I didn’t like, but even though the music’s cool, the segmentation, choppiness and sometimes randomness of it makes it hard to get heavily invested in any of it that much. 

The 3 or 4 songs that I did like individually were “Tokyo,” “Take Time,” “There Is No There,” and “A True Story…,” but the rest did have me humming along. The album as a whole is definitely more powerful and interesting than any one track or element, which could be seen as both a good and bad thing.