Mudhoney
(Sub Pop)
Did the past two decades happen? ‘Cause this record kind of makes me feel like 1988 again. But in a good way. Not like Richard Marx. Or that medley of “Freebird” and Frampton.
It’s like they booked an afternoon at Jack Endino’s a week after “Touch Me I’m Sick” and exploded all over the walls with the swagger and sweat of their earliest “work” while turning every Superfuzz and Bigmuff in Seattle to 11. In truth, it took three and a half days in a different studio, but who can tell? The riffs are brilliant, filtered through a massive wall of fuzz, and Mark Arm’s sneer still hits like every Nuggets singer worth a damn rolled into one.
On the opening cut, “I’m Now,” where the past made no sense and the future looks tense, he calls into a radio quiz show where the question is “What’s the next thing you know?,” which prompts the following exchange: “I said ‘The next thing I know my baby’s not there.’ They said ‘The next thing you know old Jed’s a millionaire.’ Now, how the hell was I supposed to guess that.’” It may be the funniest moment he’s ever recorded, which is saying something, but cracking a smile doesn’t stop him from turning around and spitting out the chorus with an urgency that’s always rivaled Iggy Pop in heat.
But even if Arm didn’t out-rock every other singer of the post-Pop generation, the guitar alone would make this album worth a listen, from the speaker-shredding Sabbath-worthy sludge of “Inside Out Over You” to the trashiest guitar sound ever – even trashier than Axis: Bold as Love -- on a title track that finds Arm weighing in on what it means to be a rock ‘n’ roll survivor with “The lucky ones have already gone down. The lucky ones are lucky they’re not around.”
And if they were around, assuming Kurt Cobain is in that group, it’s doubtful they’d be channeling the spirit of their early records with the urgency of these perpetual underdogs.
Standout Tracks: “I’m Now,” “The Lucky Ones” A. WATT
