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Photo by Miles Kalchik

Neptune’s Core have been turning their local clubs into sweaty, sold out dance parties all while being Chicago’s best-kept secret for the last decade. They’re finally deciding to share their music with the world and stop gatekeeping the emotional, soaring, and triumphant indie rock they’ve been holding. They’ve even developed a genre all their own because of their unique sound: Lemon Rock, and yes, it’s citrusy, punchy, and abrasive. It’s the kind of thing that puckers before it sweetens, and is like no other. 

These two sets of sisters, Sofie and Hannah Richter, when paired with Kaitlin and Jackie Cywinski seem almost to share one bloodstream of sound. While they were spending the better part of the decade building their reputation in the storied Chicago music scene, Pivot is the moment where a young band explores and begins mapping the moment when a local favorite becomes something bigger. It’s the sound of a band outgrowing its own shorthand in real time, and choosing what comes next. 

Pivot was produced by Scott Tallarida, who was also behind Friko’s debut record. While working with Tallarida, Neptune’s Core was encouraged to emphasize passion and approach the record from a place of emotional necessity which resulted in building out some of the final versions of these songs right in the room after frequent experimentation. The two sets of sisters spent time simultaneously being careful and methodical when stringing together gang vocals, guitar lines, and backing rhythms while also trying everything they could get their hands on and cutting what didn’t serve the song. 

Lemon Rock as a genre unto itself, is right what you’d imagine from just hearing the name. It’s citrusy, bright, punchy, and just a little reckless. Nowhere is that clearer than on lead single “Lemon Car,” the song that gave the whole sound its very name, a hook-heavy singalong that stays tightly wound and rhythmic until its final stretch. When it suddenly breaks loose entirely, it’s all acid-bright abandon, like the record itself unzipping its jacket and not being afraid to let loose. 

Now not every corner of Pivot sounds like sunlight and citrus peels. On “Tethered,” the record dips into its more shadowy side. Sofie Richter’s vocals dip from moments of desperation into anger and chart an emotional arc with archer-like precision and grace. “Cut My Garden Bare” is the record’s rawest nerve, it’s a track the band calls one of the most cathartic and important moments on the album, wired directly into the disorientation of what it’s like to become an adult. It’s less lemon-bright, and more lemon-bruised, all that citrus sharpness turned inwards. 

“Skeleton” and “Bent Down Loving More” cool things down further still, as the tracks are soft and soothing, they are tangible proof the band doesn’t need volume to make you feel something. Then the track “More Than Yours” snaps back to momentum, it’s an incredibly brave driving, hook-forward cut that trades dynamics for a straight, fast pulse and sweet, layered harmonies. 

If Pivot had to be described as a color, it’s easily Chartreuse. The record, like the color, is acidic, alive, and phosphorescent. The band stumbled on this shade during a photo shoot and adopted it as the record's visual signature. It’s the perfect stand in for what Lemon Rock actually sounds like: something citrus bright and a little dangerous, sharp enough to make you flinch and sweet enough to make you come back for more. You really feel through the whole track listing that this is a record built by two sets of sisters who have spent a decade finishing each other's sentences, and Pivot is the sound of that shorthand finally getting the studio, and the world, that it deserves. 

Listen to Pivot below: