Twenty years since the release of their first EP on the then-fledgling Sub Pop Records, Mudhoney are still out regularly ripping it up on the live circuit. And they’re not lounging on past laurels, either, because here’s a new album from the Seattle quartet - The Lucky Ones.
This could be a very short review - I could just say “The Lucky Ones is a Mudhoney album”, and if you’re familiar with their material already, you’ll know exactly what to expect. Fuzzy stoner blues and rock’n'roll with a ragged punkish what-the-fuck attitude, songs that make you want to plug in your guitar and crank out some power chords as loud as you can, maybe throw in some pentatonic solos and a bit of wah-wah, jump around the room and bounce off the furniture. Good-time guitar music, just like mother used to make.
But look at it another way - they say generations are about two decades long, and that culture moves in cycles. The Lucky Ones opens with “I’m Now”, and there’s the thing - Mudhoney are now. They’re still making the same noise they always have, and somehow they sound fresh and timeless at once. “The past makes no sense / the future looks tense” screeches Mark Arm, and it’s as true now as it was in 1988.
But there’s no doom and gloom, none of the moping that became grunge’s lingua franca as the big boys dealt with the pressures of fame. Mudhoney’s songs are down-to-earth, slightly silly and theatrical, but very real. Maybe it’s because they never became detached from relatively normal life, maybe it’s just something about their attitude, but The Lucky Ones is an album of irreverant pop songs; three-minute slices of scuzzy garage clatter that capture all the fun of making a big noise for noise’s own sake.
What you won’t get is much variety, but you don’t come to a band like Mudhoney for that. Even so, there’s plenty of texture in the weave, from the fuzzy wig-out of “The Lucky Ones” to the mock-doom-disaster of “Next Time”, the bluesy stomp of “What’s This Thing?” and the mellow moments of “Shimmering Lights”. It’s all rock’n'roll, but where’s the harm in that, eh?
And while Mudhoney may seem to have little to say, appearances may be deceptive; it’s more a case of them not beating you over the head with it. And who needs another preacher? As Arm sings in “The Open Mind”:
“here comes another line with a hook for you to swallow / here comes another lie designed to get you to follow [...] the open mind is an empty mind, so I keep mine closed”
Is he serious, or is he mocking seriousness? Or is he doing both at once? It’s never been entirely certain, and it’s no more obvious now - it’s that contradiction that keeps me coming back to Mudhoney, and The Lucky Ones doesn’t disappoint
It might be easy to question the title - after all, how can Mudhoney be The Lucky Ones after kickstarting grunge and then being eclipsed by their cohorts? Well … twenty years of playing the music they love, no trips to rehab, no descents into depression and suicide, no sense of them being has-beens. This isn’t an album made by a bitter band; it’s an album made by a band who’ve stuck to their guns, gone with the fun and reaped the rewards.
Don’t call it a comeback - they never went away.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: blues, garage, grunge, Mudhoney, rock'n'roll, stoner, The Lucky Ones
