Review of Lovey (re-issue) By Mark Morris
From Select 1993
Between the ramshackle punk of the early Lemonheads albums and last year’s masterpiece ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ there was ‘Lovey’.
Recorded shortly after the release of their one-off Roughneck indie-hit – a cover of Michael Nesmith’s ‘Different Drum’ – It’s an odd record, a patchy affair where a fine maudlin ballad like “Ride With Me” can be followed by the jokey hard rock of “Li’l Seed”. It was the Lemonheads’ first record for a major, and the first one where Evan Dando (a man who knows as much about band line-up changes as Mark E Smith) was in complete control.
There’s some good stuff here. Even the weaker songs, marred by ugly rawk guitar, are lifted by Dando’s voice with its neat trick of sounding confused and wise all at one. Certainly this was a testing record with the ‘Heads throwing off the narrower parameters of hardcore that had marked their ‘Hate Your Friends’ days.
“Ride With Me”, and
“Stove”, one of Dando’s domestic short-story songs, stand
alongside anything he has written. And the obligatory cover is a tender rendering
of Gram Parsons’ “Brass Buttons”, a telling omen of things
to come.
“Lovey” is the sound of a band at a crossroad. Hindsight tells
us they took the right turn.