Reviews
Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums of the 1990s.", 4 stars out of 5 -- "Listening to IT'S A SHAME ABOUT RAY now, what's most striking is an emotional frailty at the heart of these swift and memorable little songs...", P.72)-Included in Q's List of the 50 Best Albums of 1992., "RAY still sounds remarkably fresh, retaining its bouncy, subdued edge with a sense of humor the Lemonheads' peers painfully lacked.", 3 Stars Out of 5 -- "This Is an Interesting Juncture Indeed, Charming in Its Sunny Naivety.", "...catchy...it would be a shame not to buy RAY..." Option (Nov.-Dec./92, p.124) - "...altogether more assured...thanks to some unabashedly great songs like the title tune, this should prove wildly popular...", "Almost 16 years after its initial release, Dando's slacker pop sounds almost Zen. Those short songs now seem concise and even disciplined. What was once mopey now plays as something much more complex and contradictory: exuberant pop melancholy.", "Its sugary, lilting melodies and the boy/girl harmonies of frontman Evan Dando and then-bassist Juliana Hatfield were unexpected...", "...a triumphant return with a fifth heaping hamper of catchy, crafty guitar-pop ditties via Dando's wonderful Lemonheads...", 5 stars out of 5 -- "The whole thing was washed in a sweet, dopey, lazy sunniness that gave warmth to everything it touched...", 4 stars out of 5 -- "Careworn guitar pop, equally grounded in punk and Gram Parsons, a fusion that found its near-perfect embodiment on 1992's IT'S A SHAME ABOUT RAY."
