Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 15/06/09
Label: Cooking Vinyl

The Lemonheads are all about Evan Dando. Evan Dando and his flowing long hair. Evan Dando, his flowing long hair and his penchant for heroin. Evan Dando, his flowing long hair, his penchant for heroin and his celebrity friends. Oh, and the cover versions. The cover versions are key.

And so it goes on "Varshons", which features Dando as the only original Lemonhead starring alongside 11 tracks he didn't write. There are guest appearances from Kate Moss (on Arling & Cameron's "Dirty Robot") and previous Lemonheads collaborator Liv Tyler (on Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye"). The only thing missing is the penchant for heroin. But that's probably good.

It would be easy to criticise The Lemonheads for doing a covers album. But their greatest success has come from singing other people's songs. It was 1992's version of Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs Robinson" that thrust Dando's troops into the limelight. Of course, it was persistent plays on other people's material (check 1993's album title: "Come On Feel The Lemonheads") that kept them there.

You could argue that the art of the cover version is underappreciated. No one criticised Johnny Cash for it. Although Dando can't challenge Cash's magisterial grace, he knows how to reinvent a tune. It helps to pick the right tune and Dando has good taste, judging Gram Parsons ("I Just Can't Take It Anymore"), Wire ("Fragile") and Townes Van Zandt ("Waiting Around To Die") to be worthy of homage. But that's all this album is, really. Homage.

There's the obligatory take on the successful pop hit as Dando turns Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" into a moderately haunting acoustic track. But the lyrics are embarrassing: "Now and then I get insecure, from all the things, I'm so ashamed / I am beautiful no matter what they say / Words can't bring me down." The message is positive if you're a teenage girl, which Dando isn't and neither is his audience. So it fails. However, this is the only disaster. Even Moss's appearance is lifted beyond the cocaine dullness she offered for Babyshambles.

The problem Dando, and anyone who does covers has, is for them to work you have to add extra levels to tracks previously viewed in simple terms. That's why Cash's versions of U2's "One" and Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" will be remembered. He injected levels of wisdom to songs that previously lacked it. Dando can't do that. He has neither the experience nor the greatness. He just adds a supermodel and some long-haired slacker sheen. Which is fine. But it's little more.

    by Tom Howard