Enough of the sweet talk! Lime Cordiale's third studio album has arrived. Oli and Louis have returned with a foray into the stages of a relationship. The concept album takes the listener on a journey through the chapters of adoration, awakenings and acceptance. Crafted at their family home up north, the brothers have created their  most emotional and introspective project yet. We spoke to Oli and Louis about creating the album:

The album is great. I think my favourite right now is Happiness Season. I kept hitting replay on that. And Strangers is great. I love how it's structured through the lens of a relationship. It’s fun when an album has that structure, as opposed to when an artist throws songs together for the sake of submitting an album. So what was the catalyst for this album? Did you know that you were  beginning it?‍

Louis: Yeah there's definitely that structure to it.

Oli: We were talking today about how I didn't really know what a  concept album is. But this one has a concept behind it. So if that's what it is, then yeah, I guess it is kind of a concept album. We didn't go in depth at the very beginning being like, ‘this is what it's going to be and that’s the  concept’. But we were definitely thinking about it the whole time. And then it sort of ended up that way after like a few working titles and working concepts.

That's cool then that you made a concept album organically. As a listener and a fan, it's really exciting when a band that you've loved does something they haven't done before. Do you remember when the idea began for this idea?

Oli: I actually have no idea. We had these other ideas, at one point we were messing around with country music. We did a lot of recording at our farm, up on the mid north coast. We were inspired by the setting and how country folk are just so straight talking, there’s no bullshit. I feel like that’s where country music comes from, like straight down the line. We were getting into the twangy guitar and we had this title ‘Bougie Cowboy’ which was this theme we were walking toward. There was one point when we were designing the album like a menu. We always have food references in our lyrics as metaphors. I’m not sure why we keep doing that but at one point we were setting out the album like entrees, mains, desserts. Our working title then became a la carte. Then it felt like it didn’t have enough depth to it so we shifted focus again.

Louis: I think the country thing wasn’t ever going to work because we would come back to the city and write these eighties pop tunes as well. So it was a bit messy as a country album.

Did you work with anyone different who steered you in a new direction at all?

Louis: No, we've worked with the same guy Dave Hammer for our last three albums. I think we were learning and moving together and changing. It's continually having different influences and ideas.

Oli: Our label are a [relatively] small indie label, they’re not a major label, so we get to work closely with them and they’re cool for us to do whatever we want, really. So we just had this blank canvas of how we wanted to start the album. I think at the start we were like let’s finish the album in a month or two, just smash through it. It never really works like that for us. I think we wig out a bit and want to rewrite things and have a break, or sit with things for a while. We call our approach a bit of a Frankenstein approach in the way that we’ll often work here and then we’ll work there… We might get a few bits recorded from a guy in Berlin, and it all melds together. This one was definitely more concise than ever before, but it tends to work for us a little bit, keeping it fresh and working in different locations is also great.  

What do you think that you guys learnt from each other making the third album?  

Louis: Probably communicating emotional thoughts. We were talking about this today as well, that as Australians you don't talk too heavily about your emotions or your mental health. Then when you've written a song and you have to show the other person and explain what it's about, it’s therapeutic. We're not hiding anything from the other person. We feel like if the other one wants to understand this song, then they need to understand it as well as the other. We have to offload and then we workshop those lyrics together.

Is there a song that you think is the most surprising or unexpected that people will listen to and be shocked that it's a  new song?

Oli: I thought that with Colin, but that one's been released and, and with a song like that, you think, this is so different, people are going to be weirded out by this and then they're not even that surprised in the end. I think like when it's got your voice on it. think love is off the table is a really different song but we'll see. I once reddit post that said all Lime Cordiale songs sounds the same from like Colin to Country Club to another song. Let's say it was Imposter Syndrome or something. I was like, that’s so weird, because to me they’re pretty different sounding songs.

Yeah, you can't go on Reddit.  

Louis: Yeah, you can't, but you do.

Oli: You look at that shit, and then you think about it for years. What the fuck?

Louis: Change the whole album taste because of one reddit post.

Haha. Did you guys have like a clear vision of how the album would look? Cause I love the album cover. So Louis, tell me about crafting that because the visuals play so much into how everyone listens to the album.

Louis: I did this with what I thought was like eight days of a deadline, maybe a year ago. It really like freaked me out pretty hard. It was a week before we were going overseas and it was the last moment I could work on it before, you know, forever. So there’s a lot of frantic energy in that artwork and I definitely didn't love it until the last month or two.

Oli: It also takes Louis so long to do these artworks because he lino cuts them. People say they want five different options, it’s not like whipping out different Photoshop files. The internal part of the actual vinyl is all collaged, which is Louie doing a collage for the first time, which again, just  takes forever. I'm just like, why don't you  just get better at photoshop? Your collage surely looks the same if you're doing it like with glue and scissors.

Louis: It doesn’t!

Trust the process! Who are some artists that you guys are excited about right now?

Oli: It’s a tricky one. We were at a festival in Portugal and we saw Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Parcels. And they were just both such good bands. So they're amazing.

Louis: Chappell Roan, I've been listening to that record.

Oli: I actually think that the pop music, the top of the pops at the moment, is so sick. Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan is so different to pop music five years ago, which felt so generic to me that I was like, I just don't get this anymore. It feels like there's artists with live musicians behind them when they play live now to make it sound more like a band. And the songwriting is cool. I think that the fact that radio has lost a lot of power and people are listening on Spotify and people might listen to a full album if they dig the artist there’s room for songs to be artistic and maybe longer and not be super punchy in the first 30 seconds. They need to have really interesting parts because everyone's talking about TikTok and you need to have like a TikTok moment within the song. But like, all that really means is an interesting section. So people are trying to make every part of their song interesting and unique and weird.

Do you guys ever think like that when you're writing? ‍

Oli: We used to work towards radio, I think at one point, maybe  when we're doing like our second EP  or third EP. It's like, what will radio like? We need to get played on radio or we need to blow up with a radio song. There was a moment where our music just got a bit too generic and every song had to be like big and loud and upbeat. it wasn't until  just a bit later when we were working on the first album where we're just like, oh fuck this. Radio is not going to play us anyway. So let's just do what we like and what our fans will like and what we think would be sick on a stage as well. That’s when people started to pay attention in the industry anyway. Maybe it got a bit more interesting.

Speaking of on stage… you're going on a massive tour this year. Have you guys been thinking about that live show? Has anything been inspiring that?  

Oli: Yeah, the album concept has been forming the show to be like an exaggerated part of the album really.

Louis: These different stages of a set and a relationship as the structure of the set.

Oli: And we're really trying to think of the live show as not just like what sick lights do we want to put in there? And like are we going to have a smoke machine and are we going to put content behind us and all that on like a big LED screen? We're kind of thinking it as a full show, maybe like a musical.

Louis: Theatrical.

Oli: I mean, I'm not a big musical fan, so not a musical, but having a story. A start, middle and end and chapters to that. Yeah, like we've never really done that before. We just tried to put on like an entertaining show. But we want to take people on a journey. Like f you're stoned, you're like, fuck, what the hell's going on? And then if you're really concentrating on the show, you might follow along with it. If you're if you're a bit drunk or a little bit out of it or half concentrating, hopefully you just get like taken along on the journey.

What are you guys going to do on album release day?  

Oli: What are we doing? Friday?

Louis: I think we've got a little I think we actually go down to Canberra and Wollongong. We're doing record store signings. And a little acoustic show. Whip out the acoustic guitar and try and sell albums.

Which song are you most excited to play live?  

Oli: I always get nervous for the ones that we haven't played yet, but Enough Of The Sweet Talk would be sick. Maybe get a lap steel out. Get real country.

Listen to Enough Of The Sweet Talk HERE.

@limecordiale