Review of Car Button Cloth
by Bob Mehr
From Magnet Magazine June 2003
The seventh and final Lemonheads album is a some-what underrated, if decidedly uneven swansong from one-man band Dando. A pair of irresistible janglers ("It's All True", "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You") mark a strong first half, as do the fractured lyrics and drug-damaged sentiments of "Hospital" and "Losing Your Mind". Unfortunately, Car Button Cloth sputters to a finish with the genuinely unbearable "C'mon Daddy" (about Liv Tyler's rapprochement with her father Steven) and throwaways like the Gweneth Paltrow namecheck "6ix" and faux-metal instrumental "Secular Rockulidge" - the remainder of the LP redeemed only by a cover of mountain murder balled "Knoxville Girl", which Dando infuses with appropriately brooding post-punk intensity. Definitely maybe: Original promo copies of the record featured a fairly slight Dando/Noel Gallagher co-write called "Purple Parallelogram", apparently removed last minute at the latter's insistence.