The Lemonheads - Varshons Review

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 06.24.2009

The power pop band that remade "Mrs. Robinson" is back with an album full of covers, most of which are alt-country. Can they pull it off or is this album just "Waiting Around to Die"?

The Lemonheads was formed in 1986 by singer/guitarist Evan Dando and over the last twenty plus years, The Lemonheads has basically been Evan Dando and a rotating backing band. They achieved their breakthrough moment with the 1992 album It’s a Shame about Ray with both the title track and their cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.”

It really isn’t much of a surprise a band that made its name with a cover song would eventually release an album of all covers.

1. I Just Can’t Take It Anymore


2. Fragile


3. Layin’ Up With Linda


4. Waiting Around to Die


5. Green Fuz


6. Yeserlove


7. Dirty Robot


8. Dandelion Seeds


9. Mexico


10. Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye


11. Beautiful

While The Lemonheads made it huge with their cover of “Mrs. Robinson”, it was short lived and they slipped back into obscurity. With Varshons, forget everything you knew about then band before Evan Dando fell off the deep end and disappeared for a decade. This is not the melodic power pop that he originally made his name playing.

The album was inspired by producer Gibby Haynes (The Butthole Surfers), who had been making mixtapes for Dando for years. Dando has always had the reputation as a slacker and here he makes it an art form by simply taking the best songs that Haynes mixed for him and covering them.

He starts off the album with a cover of Gram Parsons “I Just Can’t Take It Anymore” and instantly you are thrown for a curve as Dando garbles the lyrics in a gravelly voice that is as different from anything you have heard from the man. After this fairly upbeat start, Dando drifts into some dark, moody roads with “Fragile” (Wire) and “Layin’ Up with Linda” (G.G. Allin).

It is with the G.G. Allin song that I really became impressed with what Dando was trying to accomplish here. He drops his gravelly voice even deeper and belts out some humorously dark lyrics (“One day I killed her/Now I’m on the run/But living with Linda used to be fun”). Think what you want, but I love this song.

I can’t listen to the first six songs on this album without thinking this would be perfect backing music for a movie soundtrack. The sound is a bit like punk meets country and it is perfect mood music that surprised the hell out of me. Then the entire album comes crashing down with the seventh song “Dirty Robot”.

Kate Moss delivers the vocals on this dance song that comes across as more a parody of a dance song and is just vapid, stupid and should never, ever have been put on this album. It is a song that practically kills the entire spirit the album has built to this point. Next up is “Dandelion Seeds” (July), a song possessing a strong Hendrix sound, but once again something that does not fit in.

This might have been Dando’s entire intent as he calls it a mix tape, but these two songs seem to come from an entirely different mix then what came before. He covers Leonard Cohen on the album as well with “Hell, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” which would be pretty good if he didn’t have Liv Tyler singing backup. She didn’t inherit her father’s looks but didn’t inherit his singing chops either. She sounds like that drunk girl sitting on the barstool next to you, silently warbling your favorite song. It’s just wrong.

The album concludes with a cover of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” and when a song makes me wish I was listening to Aguilera instead, you know there is something wrong.

The 411: Varshons starts off spectacularly. The first six songs surprised me and I could listen to them on a non ending loop in my car and be happy. However once he steps over the line with the obnoxious dance song and then veers off into pop territory. I can do without the rest. Song nine (“New Mexico”) is the only redeeming song on the last half of the album. After a great start, it just fizzles out in the end and remains an unmemorable effort.

Final Score:  6.0   [ Average ]