Review by Daniel Fetherston

The Hindu Love Gods were essentially R.E.M. with Warren Zevon replacing Michael Stipe as front man. Always somewhat of a joke, the quartet did manage to release a self-titled album of cover songs that they had recorded in 1987 with leftover studio time. Loose and spirited, the group tackles a range of off-the-cuff covers that could be throwaways but for the sheer talent and charm of the players. Indeed, their spirited rendition of Prince’s “Rasberry Beret” even made the charts in 1990. A pair of Robert Johnson-penned blues classics and Muddy Waters’s “Mannish Boy” are attempted with similar aplomb. HINDU LOVE GODS is a rare kind of supergroup album: good-natured, unpretentious, irreverent, inebriated, and ultimately essential