Dinosaur Jr* – Hand It Over

Dinosaur Jr. resurfaced in 2007 as the initial line-up, surprisingly delivering an excellent album that was everything you could expect from a Dinosaur record… and more; the mesmerizing "Beyond" was a kick in the teeth for all those reunions acts & come-backs of so many grunge era formations that had the total incapacity to deliver new material even half as good than their classics. In fact D Jr. might be the only example of a successful come-back (with the obvious exception of MBV if you consider their 21 years hiatus a band split, a perception I tend to disagree with… but hey! an other band, an other record, an other story). Since "Beyond", they released 2 more fantastic albums, as if they were never gone, with the energy and finesse particular to their sound, and with a touch of modernity that brought them even further in their extremely peculiar quest for excellence. That story tend to make us look at Dinosaur's pre-1998 discography with a point of view that validates the commonly shared opinion that only the first three lps are "real" D Jr.'s albums while the ones coming after are perceived as J Mascis slowly loosing it to the point of rupture and the death of the "band" (?!).
As a fervent follower of Dinosaur's music & story, I have to completely disagree with that opinion expressed by most of the critics that too often induce such ideas in the heads of so many music addicts. There's no doubt in my mind that the initial line-up has never been topped in D Jr.'s concerts history; it was true then, and it stays true today: the furious purple hazed triangle formed by Mascis, Barlow & Murph is an unbeatable noise machine filled with chaos, rage and melancholia strangely distilled through a powerful distorted psychedelic wall of sound were Dino's music seems to finally be completely at home. Nevertheless, the recorded material is to my mind, a totally different affair. It's undeniable that "You're Living All Over Me" & "Bug" are classics from the best years of the grunge era, their excellence has already been well established. It's also true that the departure of Barlow quickly followed by Murph's defection weakened Dinosaur's ability to sound as definitive and important on the following two records ("Green Mind" in 90' & "Whatever's Cool With Me" in 91'); Thus said, It's no less true that with the release of "Where You Been?" in 93', Mascis somehow managed to reinvent himself as a composer and brought a spectrum of feelings that were totally unheard in preceding Dinosaur Jr.'s discography. "Where You Been" is a splendid album, the first Dino record since "Bug" to be properly produced, powerful in sound and showing a fragility in almost half of the tracks that was not only refreshing, but showed Dino's melancholia in its naked form: pure & deadly ("Not The Same", "Get Me"…).
I will not spend much time on "Without A Sound", its 94' follower who, with the exception of the splendid opener "Feel The Pain", is to my mind the most uninteresting and common D Jr.'s album ever released.
"Hand It Over" (97') on the other hand, is entirerly an other story. Never spending more than a year or two between releases, Mascis apparently took his time to write the last chapter of the first Dinosaur Jr. storybook (the "band" was officially dismantled after its release). That time was put to such good use that the absence of interest this album received is a wall of shame. "Hand It Over" is a pure jewel that contains a lot of the best Mascis compositions (The guest presence on two tracks of MBV's Kevin Shields & Belinda Butcher should be a strong sign of the extreme beauty of that beloved album). The implacable genius of a track like "Feel The Pain" & the renaissance felt in "Where You Been" is finally brought to completion in such an impeccable manner that one can only stay emotionally transcended while listening to a timeless suite of heartfelt instant classics that strangely seems to still wait for their audience.

Got it on cassette!