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Rating: "just looking for sunshine to be burning full time"
Seven years after the last release from the Lemonheads, Evan Dando returns with his own name, though the album features collaborations with the likes of Chris Brokaw, who left his role as drummer in the immense Codeine to play guitar with Come, R. Langdon of Spacehog, Hove Gelb, John Covertino and Joey Burns of Giant Sand (the latter two also in Calexico), as well as the old collaborator Tom Morgan.
Time has passed for everyone, and we are not talking about young kids here. Even Dando was born in the now distant 1967.
But the music remains the same as 10 years ago, delightful pop with country influences, acoustic. Evan Dando's voice is still soft and sweet, lulling you with the melody.
I think of a sunny afternoon and 200 kilometers in the car, with his record. It seems like nothing happens, everything seems the same, but every time something new pops up, a phrase, an arpeggio, a slide guitar soft and obsessive like the sun.
Lazy.
An unexpected ray of sunshine that surprises you and steals a smile.
And you start to draw conclusions about your life, although a partial, intermediate milestone, now you can and must do it:
"All my life I thought I needed all the things I didn't need at all".
With the phrase "All my life" opening up majestic and gentle. Catharsis. It lifts a weight from your heart.
In the next verse, "need" is replaced with "want". Delightful and simple. And effective.
"In the Grass All Wine Colored" is country, I hear Frank Black and Johnny Cash. And the questions and pearls of wisdom continue in "Why Do You Do This To Yourself": "you've been awake for 14 days and then slept for a week, why do you do these things to yourself? You've been drinking standing by the emergency exit until you couldn't speak anymore, why do you do these things to yourself?"
We don't know either.
Someday we will come to understand its meaning.
A beautiful, mature album, not innovative, but we repeat, typical Lemonheads standard, it seems like nothing happens, song structures are disarmingly simple but somehow they capture you forever, they speak to you.
You find yourself singing them again after years. When you don't even remember which album they were on.
One of the great singer-songwriters, capable of facing the audience even just with an acoustic guitar because all his songs are true.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Repeat (03:13)
Reaching out to look inside
I got it wrong again
I try so hard to take your side
Though I know you can’t win
You’re on your own
You’re in the street
Come back home
Repeat
Take a fall, or place your bet
It’s the same damn thing
Crushing out a cigarette
Crack a fill of gin
Things go wrong
Admit defeat
Things go well
Repeat
We got time to walk around
Drifting away on solid ground
Take a plane to someplace cold
Somewhere warm if we get old
Stick to your guns
I’ll find my feet
My legs won’t run
Repeat
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