Echoes and dust

Throughout The Lemonheads long history there has been a rich vein of cover versions, from Proud Scum's I Am A Rabbit on their debut EP 'Laughing All The Way To The Cleaners' and 'Amazing Grace' on the Hate Your Friends album, right up until 'Outdoor Type' on Car Button Cloth and a whole plethora of covers on the accompanying singles.

However, with the exception of a few low key singles and his one live album, Dando seemed to have left the cover versions behind, which for some of us was a shame. It also coincided with him leaving the drugs behind and forgetting to turn the quality control on (let's be honest his last 2 albums excited about as much as beige wallpaper). Well, it seems like he'd never left it behind he was just waiting to release a whole bally lot of them. And so it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that Varshons was popped into the CD player.

The album was supposedly inspired by mix tapes that Gibby Haynes, here on production duties, made over the years for Dando. Everybody knows that making a good mix tape is a refined art and one that apparently elludes Dando. What we get is good - Gram Parsons’ 'I Just Can't Take It Anymore' (shock horror! Evan Dando covering Gram Parsons - surely no one saw that coming!), bad - Wire's 'Fragile' and fucking disgusting - 'Dirty Robot'.

Where Dando kind of succeeds is sticking to what he knows best; the country of Parsons and Townes Van Zandt ('Waiting Around To Die'), both of which are great covers but not really pushing any boundaries, and
psychedelic drugged up drones of 'Green Fuz' and 'Yesterlove'. 'Mexico' is another highlight and hints at the potential that Dando has to make a raw, stripped down and gritty, country album. But despite being minor
victories they barely make up for the rest of the album which does little to quicken the heart. 'Beautiful' is a lazy take on Aguilera, 'Hey, that's No Way To Say Goodbye', is unimaginative and 'Fragile' sounds like a (bad) sixth form covers band. In fact 'Varshons' drifts into the background and passes without ever raising ones attention. That is except when it's bad and it gets bloody bad!

'Dirty Robot' is just a terrible idea - The Lemonheads go electro AND with Kate Moss on vocals!! Please never let her near a rock band EVER AGAIN! It's also odd that he's covered an electro song in an electro
style - wouldn't it have been cleverer and more interesting if he'd covered Gram Parsons in an electro style and 'Dirty Robot' in a country style? 'Dandelion' follows and would make Kula Shaker proud - the rest of us ashamed.

'Varshons' was meant to come out about a year ago but has sat on a shelf gathering dust since. Some may say it should have stayed there. At the very least it should have been a massive hint to the man that it simply isn't good enough.

Top Tracks: 'I Just Can't Take It Anymore', 'Green Fuz'.

Released June 22 on Rhino