Album Review: The Lemonheads, Love Chant

Evan Dando was once the pin-up boy for slacker indie, his face plastered all over newspapers with his latest celebrity girlfriend. Addiction issues took their toll on the frontman, and he has released music only sporadically over the last two decades.

Dando’s recent return to the live arena with The Lemonheads has been a mixed bag. Some stellar shows proved the ‘90s indie darling still has a twinkle in his eye and a tune in his vocal chords, while others apparently descended into shambolic, mumbling affairs.

Love Chant is the first new recorded output from The Lemonheads in almost two decades. Recorded in his adopted home of Brazil, it’s produced by Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Apollo Nove, and the production is unusual, some of the arrangements sounding decidedly unfinished.

‘Marauders’ sounds like he’s singing over the wrong song, while ‘Be In’ starts out as confessional folk-rock, before going weirdly punk for its coda.

The uber-catchy ‘58 Second Song’ (which weighs in at 203 seconds) reminds us why we fell for Dando’s tumbledown charm the first time around. ‘Deep End’, co-written with Tom Morgan (Smudge), could be an out-take from ‘90s US alternative college rock radio, all staccato drums, edgy riffs and laidback vocals, along with a searing guitar solo from J Mascis.

Elsewhere, the galloping ‘In The Margin’ is a lo-fi kiss-off (“I’d rather die than let your thoughts confine me”); ‘Cell Phone Blues’ is a catchy cacophony of toe-tapping indie and raucous punk energy; and the closing ‘Roky’ is ramshackle and romantic in equal measure – like Dando himself at his best.

7/10