In his thirties and no longer the poster boy of the post-grunge generation, Evan Dando returns a wiser and seemingly chastened man on Baby I'm Bored, his first studio album since the Lemonheads' 1996 finale Car Button Cloth. It's well documented that the late 1990s were difficult years for the singer as, narcotic-addicted, he struggled to locate his muse and motivation. It's heartening, then, that he has returned with a set of such genuinely lovely songs. Visceral, vital and yearning, Baby I'm Bored boasts a wealth of gems. The opener, "Repeat", is vulnerable and touched with intimations of mortality, yet quietly resolute; "It Looks Like You" is as spectral and plangent as the Byrds; "Hard Drive" even rehabilitates that widely despised genre, the list song. However, the ambience isn't always so positivist. "The Same Thing" hints darkly at mental turmoil endured ("I can't believe how far I slipped") while "Why Do You Do This to Yourself?" berates a kamikaze party animal over the most muted of acoustic strums. So, is this Dando's autobiographical meisterwerk? Well, if it is, there is resolution: "All My Life" gratefully delineates newer, sounder perspectives ("All my life I thought I needed / The things I didn't need at all") while the giddy, bucolic closer "In the Grass All Wine Colored" sounds as pristine and pure as a baby's conscience. Members of Calexico, Giant Sand, Come and Spacehog chip in their support on the album but the focus is fully on Dando, an artist reborn, restored and--palpably--far from bored. --Ian Gittins
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