Review of Creator
By Martin Aston from NME 1988
If American post-hardcore is the definitve mix of musical sour and sweet - sour, the sound of fractious guitars, melting, and sweet, the coils of melody mashed into the fire- then Boston's Lemonheads are the most suitably named yet. Spiritually too, these four peach-fuzzed Stand By Me (the film) understudies sound sweetly intoxicated to the point of distraction by their bursting Husker-pop blisters. But typically sourewd by the usual seeds of adolescent self-doubt, doledrums and living-under-George-Bush fears. Not for nothing was Lemonheads' debut called 'Hate Your Friends"...
If such sepia-toned rushes of mixed melancholia has been worked well through by Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum and The Replacements, Lemonheads' perfectly tormented strains will find a place to stand and quiver. They're slightly less obviously punky (the first album was Son of Stiff Little Fingers and Undertones foot-stamping) and increasingly wistful. Come To The Window's "seasons come and seasons go/I will always be here" seems to invert Hate Your Friends' self-deprecating messages (as in Fed Up and F----ed Up) but Sunday, Falling and Live Without's downbeatness still makes me think of Lemonheads as some American box-bedroom rebel equivalents to The Smiths.
Whether a straight-faced acoustic version of Charles Manson's Home Is Where You're Happy and a stroppy Kiss cover falls on the side of sweet or sour, well your guess is your guess. Lemontwist and shout, anybody?