Devon Vonder Schmalz, known as Dev Lemons, started her career where many independent Generation Z artists do. Under the name Miss iPad, she released bedroom pop music on SoundCloud from 2018 to 2020 before deciding to teach herself music theory and production during the coronavirus pandemic through YouTube lessons.
Six years later, it feels like Lemons has lived multiple lives. She’s gained an audience of over one million followers across various social media platforms, where she breaks down music composition. She’s released multiple solo and collaborative projects and now, she has unlocked her potential with her second studio album released under the Dev Lemons moniker, hunting what we already killed.
Lemons takes listeners through a familiar journey of falling in and out of love in this generation. She sets herself apart from contemporaries with fearless lyrics that go over the top in describing how Lemons feels about the person on the other side of the relationship.
The best example comes from “eat the pavement,” the album’s most streamed song on Spotify. Lemons does not hold back, singing “In the end if it were really up to me / I’d make you eat the pavement.” The tone of this track sets up the second portion of the record, where Lemons slowly realizes the silliness of the person she had obsessed over.
Lemons does a brilliant job of choosing when to turn the intensity up vocally and instrumentally. She fills the majority of hunting what we already killed with angelic and reverberant singing that creates a dream-like vibe, but delivers small pockets of “scream queen” level shouting, especially on the penultimate track, “another word you say.”
“ice the bruise,” another standout, closes the album and the grieving process of the relationship. As Lemons sings “Why won’t you take the bite / Of your own rotten fruit / I’d let you numb the pain / If you would face the truth,” she comes to a realization of almost feeling sorry that the person responsible for her heartbreak does not realize their mistakes, while understanding that they’re still a bad person.
While Lemons’ magical, descriptive lyricism steals the show on hunting what we already killed, the audio mixing and production on the album should not go unnoticed. A project clearly made for headphones, the album’s use of left-to-right audio and vocal layering adds levels of sonic depth to an already-great album.
The album’s one drawback comes from Lemons’ vocal clarity; due to her heavy use of reverb, when the instrumentals pick up in volume, hearing her lyrics becomes slightly difficult.
hunting what we already killed is a deeply immersive album that turns the messiness of young love into something haunting, dramatic and strangely beautiful. Despite some muddled vocals, Lemons gives plenty worth hunting.
4 ½ beaten dead horses out of 5
