Review of Baby I'm Bored by Daniel Schulman
From Free Williamsburg 2003
During Evan Dando's career with
the Lemonheads, his knack for crafting deliriously fetching pop songs was
routinely overshadowed by media scandalmongering covering his escalating drug
abuse and sordid offstage antics. Following the 1996 release of the Lemonheads'
last album, Car Button Cloth, Dando absconded from the public eye. Maintaining
a low profile, he surfaced over the years for rare live appearances and released
Live at the Brattle in 2001, a double-disc spotted with acoustically rendered
Lemonheads standards and alt-country covers. Drug-free and recently married,
Dando has at last returned from the breach with his first collection of new
material in seven years.
On Baby I'm Bored Dando's path of self-inquiry manifests in a diverse collection
of songs from stark folk musings, to clap-happy pop ballads, to rumbling honky-tonk
serenades. Each song like his private confessional, Dando ruminates on the
machinations of love, indulging destructive desires, and loss of identity.
Occasionally his soul-searching turns up a jarring strain of truth. "I
can't believe how far I slipped/But secretly I'm glad I did/Can't believe
how far I slipped/I guess I had to see," he sings on "The Same Thing."
Oddly, the track that appears to find Dando's self-awareness at its pinnacle,
"All My Life," was penned by Ben Lee. Dando lays claim to it as
if it were his own. Stretching his meditative tenor over a sparse acoustic
backdrop he croons, "God knows what I thought I'd do/I bit my own sweet
heart in two/All my life I thought I needed all the things I didn't need at
all."
Bracingly sincere and infinitely catchy, Baby I'm Bored picks up where Dando
left off years ago. Most Lemonheads fans will agree it's sure good to have
him back.