Description
Originally released in March 1997, Hand It Over is a brilliant, complex, diverse and fitting end to the Dinosaur Jr major label era. Pressed on 180g vinyl this re-issue features heavyweight sleeve and newly designed inner bag.
Bouncing back from the more measured Without A Sound, J Mascis turns in his most eclectic album since Green Mind with Hand It Over. Dinosaurs bedrock sound still hasnt changed its still a sprawling, electric mess of hard rock filtered through folk-rock song structures but Mascis plays with the arrangements, adding strings, trumpets, and on a handful of tracks, My Bloody Valentines slippery guitar orchestrations and vocals (Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher both sing on the album). These addition make the music sound fresh, but they would only be window dressing if Mascis songs werent as strong a they are.
The opener, I Dont Think, leads off with a thunderous, bass-driven boom enveloping a falsetto vocal, then lapses into a wistful folky chorus. Nothings Going On is a straight-ahead, slow-tempo rocker with heavy guitar overdrive and a straight snare-drum beat. Im Insane, one of the albums strongest cuts, features a loopy trumpet doing an off-key dance as the song switches between a dark stall and a manic chorus. Cant We Move This is the most probably the most satisfying track for fans of the middle albums, with a lot of slashing guitar work and the Marshalls set on kill, again set against the fascinating counterpoint of an almost inaudible falsetto vocal.
With almost every track, Mascis has worked the song structure, vocals and instrumentation to their most intriguing possibilities.
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