Dinosaur Jr. - Hand It Over

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 hasn't 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 Valentine's 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 weren't as strong a they are. The opener, I Don't Think, leads off with a thunderous, bass-driven boom enveloping a falsetto vocal, then lapses into a wistful folky chorus. Nothing's Going On is a straight-ahead, slow-tempo rocker with heavy guitar overdrive and a straight snare-drum beat. I'm Insane, one of the album's strongest cuts, features a loopy trumpet doing an off-key dance as the song switches between a dark stall and a manic chorus. Can't 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. Alone is a three-chord feedback masterpiece which is the closest clone of Neil Young ever recorded by Mascis (and that's not a slight; it's brilliant in its own right). My personal favorite is Loaded, with its agonized, gut-twisting vocal and chainsaw guitar line. The slower cuts, notably Never Bought It and Sure Not Over You, are more classic Mascis, reminiscent of Where You Been. Getting Rough is played on a banjo and might be taken as J's reflection on - and farewell to - Dinosaur Jr.With almost every track, Mascis has worked the song structure, vocals and instrumentation to their most intriguing possibilities.