The first three tracks on the Lemonheads' new covers album are by Gram Parsons, Wire, and G.G. Allin. You'd be hard pressed to find three more disparate rock acts, yet on Varshons they all sound like the Lemonheads-- boppy, overcast alt-rock delivered at a fast clip and sung in a whiskey tenor. Since their earliest albums, the Boston group has made covers a cornerstone of their concerts and albums, such that you could assemble a pretty wide-ranging retrospective based wholly on their treatments of songs by Suzanne Vega, Charles Manson, the Louvin Brothers, and Hair. And Varshons starts predictably strong: The Lemonheads play Parsons' "I Just Can't Take It Anymore" like it was written especially for them, much as they did with his "Brass Buttons" years ago, and Wire's "Fragile" is a short burst of desert melody that turns the tense rhythms of the original into a light-as-air sing-along reminiscent of It's a Shame About Ray. But the keeper here is "Layin' Up with Linda", which despite its unsavory aspects-- mindless violence against women-- manages the nifty trick of turning Allin's skeezepunk original into a country-tinged murder ballad.
As discomfiting as that song may be, it not only makes the next song, Townes Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die", sound tame but proves that Dando's women troubles are a lot more compelling than his drug problems. Starting with Randy Alvey & the Green Fuz's "Green Fuz", a middling hallucinogenic number, Varshons descends into a narco-musical haze. "Yesterlove" is a superlatively stoned joint originally by rock tabla player Sam Gopal; Dando keeps that instrument as the song's foundation, which means it doesn't sound much like the Lemonheads. Similarly, "Dandelion Seeds", originally by psychedelic outfit July, is an aimless trip that meets the original in the past instead of bringing it up to date. The depth and breadth of the tracklist are commendable but often work against the band. Dando obviously has a large collection of vinyl and a good knowledge of rarely trampled pop terrain, but what good is it if most everything here comes across as either half-assed or poorly chosen?
Half the fun of any covers album is hearing an artist translate songs to their own particular sound, reimagining and reinventing them in their own image. As such, the cover of Arling & Cameron's "Dirty Robot" sounds like cheating. They use the same turgid synths that clogged the original, which means the song sounds like the work of a different band. Kate Moss' vocals are really the only interesting aspect of the cover, not because they're especially inspired but because it's Kate fuckin' Moss. Liv Tyler fares better on an otherwise limp cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye", where her soft vocals make a striking complement to Dando's.
It's almost ironic that the best cover here is also the least obscure. Linda Perry's "Beautiful" is becoming a standard of the 2000s; originally sung by Christina Aguilera, it's been covered by Clem Snide, the All-American Rejects, and Elvis Costello. But here Dando makes it his own, even if that means he makes it sound like it's playing over the closing credits to Empire Records. It's an ideal match between singer and song, a surprising moment that almost makes up for the mess that came before it. Almost.
