Lemon: Let It Out!
Finding Defiant Glee in the Anxiety of Lemon’s Let It Out!
by Jack Rush
There’s a beautifully urgent twitch at the heart of Lemon’s new single, “Let It Out!”—a coiled-spring energy seconds away from either total collapse or a euphoric leap into the air. It’s the sound of a nervous breakdown that’s found a reason to dance. In true Lemon fashion, the track taps into what the band calls “Nedchester”—a funky, soulful, neo-Madchester hybrid that mixes Mancunian swagger with Dutch sun-soaked looseness.
The rhythm section drives the catharsis: Mark Bongers’ bassline struts with persuasive purpose, while Paul Hesen’s drums tap out a kind of funky Morse code that translates to get up, get out, right now. Around them, Ralf Hesen’s guitars and Thomas Gense’s keyboards shimmer with radiant urgency, setting the stage for a track that collapses tension into liberation.
The song thrives on contradiction. Its verses vibrate with an almost comic panic about the modern world—“my head is gonna explode”—delivered with such blunt sincerity that you feel the pressure rising in your own skull. But then the chorus bursts open, not with despair, but with defiant joy. It’s as if the song exhales all its worry in one giant Technicolor rush, insisting that the only sane response to absurdity is to go outside and find the sun.
This isn’t optimism. It’s survival by surrender. It carries the same strange energy as a Hieronymus Bosch painting—chaos everywhere, but one little figure has decided to sit down and enjoy the view anyway. “Let It Out!” is the soundtrack to that choice: the ecstatic shrug of someone who’s done caring about the apocalypse long enough to dance through it.
Lemon isn't preaching escapism; they’re offering fun as a logical response to existential dread. A groovy bassline might not fix the planet, but it makes the weight of its problems feel momentarily liftable—and certainly more danceable.
As part of the band’s ambitious #lemon12 series, “Let It Out!” stands tall. The track folds in congas, soulful vocals from guest singer Yasmina van Gurp, and a lyrical wink that turns doom into something almost cheeky. “Don’t mind the world it will soon be gone,” they sing—not with despair, but with a grin that dares you to stop pretending everything’s fine and start living anyway.
Lemon remain the world’s sole purveyors of the Nedchester groove, and their catalogue proves why the term exists at all. Their live reputation continues to grow—recently blowing the roof off Amsterdam’s legendary Paradiso—and they’ve shared stages with Primal Scream, The Charlatans, and Stereo MC’s.
With “Let It Out!”, they deliver another slice of indie-funk exuberance that pulls from Madchester, soul rock, pop rock, and dance pop, while still sounding unmistakably like Lemon: irreverent, infectious, and somehow joyful in the face of everything.
If you’re into Primal Scream, Happy Mondays, Phoenix, Talking Heads, The Kooks, or The Dandy Warhols—Lemon’s latest might be your new anthem of cheerful nihilism.
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