The Lemonheads "Varshons" Album Review on New Musical Express

by: Leonie Cooper

"No strangers to a cover, here the grunge-pop heroes perfect the art."

It’s fair to say that cover versions have played a pretty large part in the topsy-turvy life of The Lemonheads. Despite crafting some of the most gorgeous guitar-pop songs of the ’90s, the band – or should we say Evan Dando and the rotating cast of musical extras who played in his citrus-flavoured backing group – are, in some parts, still remembered as just those guys who got in the charts with Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson".

It wasn’t the first time The Lemonheads had taken on someone else’s song; they came to prominence in the UK in the late-’80s with an album that included their take on Suzanne Vega's "Luka". Now, two decades down the line, Dando’s at it again, with a whole album full of mix-and-match covers which comfortably sit just on the right side of bizarre.

From ‘I Just Can’t Take It Anymore’, originally by Dando’s idol, Gram Parsons, through to Christina Aguilera’s ‘Beautiful’ and GG Allin’s ‘Layin’ Up With Linda’, each chimes perfectly with the countrified lilt that Dando has always carried with him. Almost everything sounds like it always has been, and always will be, an original Lemonheads track.

Read the full article here:
http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-lemonheads/10563