Lemonheads
It's A Shame About Ray

THE REVIEW

The human factor has never been the most favorable for approaching the Lemonheads and the charming Evan Dando. The "presentable face of grunge," with a good-boy look that made the hearts of indie-rockers around the world flutter and intrigued even the Ladies who read about his exploits in gossip magazines (after all, this album even includes the cover of "Mrs. Robinson"...), involved with everyone worth being involved with (from Winona Ryder to his bassist Juliana Hatfield, and even Courtney Love elegantly let it be known she had slept with him), unexpectedly fell from grace after the end of the alternative-MTV affair, to the point of being forced to play the foolish dancer (like Bez from Happy Mondays) at Oasis concerts to regain a minimum of visibility. Nevertheless, Evan was also a great songwriter, and this is what we want to talk about. If it's the news of these days that the Lemonheads are returning to the scene, the mind cannot help but return to Dando's best album, curiously still not reviewed here on Debaser.

"It's a shame about Ray" is a prodigious blend of college rock, a happy snapshot capturing the band during the transition from their apprenticeship in the Husker Du zone of the flourishing Boston scene (with already notable albums like "Lovey") to the period of charming tunes fit for Dawson Creek like "Into Your Arms" and "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" that would characterize the creative agony of the lemon heads in the mid-last decade.

In less than thirty minutes within these grooves, one finds the hallmarks of a minor miracle: a work in which sunny folk melodies of the protective deity Gram Parsons, Mouldian guitar debris, and dazzling jangle pop intuitions converge with freshness and creativity.
Tracks like "Rockin' Stroll", "Rudderless" or "Alison Is Starting To Happen" are emblematic in this sense, with their fury caged in a bedroom pathos. However, the album's peaks are "Confetti", which sounds like Neil Young's "Harvest" peeled by the Ramone brothers, the title track with its soft intimate watercolors, the enveloping litany "My Drug Buddy," inlaid with a divine organ and the female counterpoint of the beautiful Juliana and the beach-bonfire song "Hannah & Gaby," with its soft roots aromas.
Dando added considerable value to the gems of "It's a Shame About Ray" with his warm and deep voice, seemingly detached while recounting the rosary of the good college rocker (innocuous stories of boredom, broken hearts, and drugs in middle-class residential neighborhoods, and skits fit for Friends like in the sugary "Kitchen"), yet always lively and engaging. Traces of this art have been found in the excellent – though largely ignored – solo debut "Baby I'm Bored," and in the end, we hope the handsome Evan still produces some delicious pop candies. Despite, at the time, favoring Eddie Vedder, his creased shirts, his greasy hair, and the various Jeremy.