Dinosaur Jr.
Hand It Over

Time is a gentleman, J Mascis must have thought in the last five years. The triumphant reunion of Dinosaur Jr in original format, with various tours and the successful LPs "Beyond" and "Farm" from a couple of years ago, has restored the long-haired man from Massachusetts to his role as an alternative rock icon: even the bible of the most fashionable and stereotypical indie kids "pitchforksomethingorother" has sung his praises. And to think that just over a decade ago the dinosaurs, now reduced to a one man band, had become extinct in general indifference after their last album, received in 1997 as a Jurassic relic, while the hated Lou Barlow was the darling of the press with Sebadoh and climbing the charts with Folk Implosion.

Revisited today, "Hand it over" confirms itself as an extremely ambitious work although certainly not as inspired as in the best days. A sort of slacker epic, aimed at expanding the "dragged melody drowned in a sea of feedback" formula that made Mascis famous. This is also thanks to the collaboration with that other mad head of Kevin Shields, as if the author of "Loveless" wanted to pay homage to the influence that the Young Dinosaur had on his My Bloody Valentine, and thus on a good portion of the shoegaze scene. The famous disappeared from English rock in a handful of episodes helps to make the classic Mascis wall of sound even denser and more layered, although the incisiveness of the past is only grasped by flashes. There is also the inclusion of trumpets, flutes, banjo: other solutions that try to liven up a definitely worn-out script, such as in the bucolic "I'm insane", "Never bought it" or "Getting rough", with that lethargic voice that brings back the visions of the more serene Neil Young towards Nashville. Those who especially appreciate Mascis's guitar eruptions will find something to chew on in "Loaded", in the rattling "Can't we move this" and in the disenchanted "Mick", " I know yer insane" or "I don't know".

To be included in our best of the band are the eight minutes of "Alone", from the title itself a programmatic manifesto for its author: a limping walk in the footsteps of the man from Ontario in a mephitic and stagnant swamp, as if "Cortez the killer" had been played during the sessions of "Tonight's the night". And the soul ballad "Sure not over you", crossed by a bouncing piano before crashing into metal sheets.

An album inevitably for completists, but if the indolent J will always be the lost desk mate from elementary school for you, "Hand it over" is also to be kept in a showcase.