MARY LOU LORD

Got No Shadow 8/10

The US grunge scene was never short on bit-part players, and this Boston busker managed to secure a cameo in the genre biopic by dint of an alleged fling with Kurt Cobain and the alt.rock rite of passage that is a public feud with Courtney Love. But creatively, she never quite got her act together to catch the attendant gravy train. A string of EPs on Kill Rock Stars preserved her credibility, but her simple, immediate bohemian vignettes always had a broader appeal, something proven on this 1998 debut album, her sole majorlabel LP. She has put out sporadic indie sets since, but this first substantial statement has aged gracefully on this no-frills 20th-birthday reissue. The saccharine immediacy of her gossamer soft indie ditties (some co-written with longtime creative foil, The Bevis Frond’s Nick Saloman) are offset by some pithily bohemian lyrics. “Honesty and ecstasy don’t help me,” she observes over the knock-kneed grunge of “Some Jingle Jangle Morning”, “and my dance with Mr Brownstone got too rough.” Then “Throng Of Blowtown” (me neither), muses on everything from copyright laws to Carole Kaye having succumbed to “a carpal tunnel freeze-out”, as a skipping acoustic breeze echoes Ray-era Lemonheads. Elsewhere, “Lights Are Changing” channels the easy harmonydrenched allure of Teenage Fanclub. Extras: None.