I first heard Seattle’s Mudhoney in about 1990. It would have been the song ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ off there groundbreaking debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff and I have been a fan ever since. After a career spanning just shy of 25 years and having released nine studio albums, three compilation albums, five EPs and fourteen singles, these grunge/garage punk/fuzz rock stalwarts are still on the game (for most part) with the delivery of their most recent album Vanishing Point released on SubPop Records earlier this month.
The album is 10 songs of everything that Mudhoney is famous for – dirty, fat fuzzed out blues rockin`, punk inspired riffs with singer/guitarist Mark Arm’s usual self deprecating and sarcastic lyrics. Along with fellow musos Dan Peters (drums), Steve Turner (lead guitar) and Guy Maddison (whom replaced original bassist and founding member Matt Lukin in 2000) have hit the nail on the head .
Track 1 – ‘Slipping Away’ opens this rocker of a record up with Dan Peters frenetic drumming, and upon the arrival of Mark Arm’s and Steve Turner’s wailing guitars you know you are listening to Mudhoney, unmistakable in all its raw brilliance.
Track 2 – ‘I Like it Small’ follows on with the fuzzed out glory, with its simple garage punk rock sensibility and oh-so basic chorus. The lads from Mudhoney are obviously still loving taking the piss out of themselves, you can’t help but like the simplicity of this track.
Track 3 – ‘What to do with the Neutral’ steps up the game a little bit with a fair deal more structure and wholeness to this song, and from the lyric content of this track, Mark Arm gets the message across that it’s not all about taking the piss. Sometimes taking a step back and having a look at yourself is sometimes not the worst thing that one can do. With the addition of keys in the song, is a cracker.
Track 4 – ‘Chardonnay’ is straight forward garage/punk rock and roll tune that has something to do with the wine that shares the same name. With the lyrics, “get the fuck out my backstage, I hate you Chardonnay”, it may have something to do with a particular person in the band’s illustrious history that has pissed them off. Who knows, and who really cares, as long as it rocks, and that it does.
Track 5 – ‘The Final Course’, Track 6 – ‘In this Rubber Tomb’, and Track 7 – ‘I Don’t Remember You’, kind of lose me briefly, and I think that has been one of the scourges of this band and how they have not had the commercial success that could have been awarded to them (as other lesser bands have). I don’t know, I’m not sure if it’s how the album listing is set out, or if they just write shit songs on occasion, but I do know that on most of the Mudhoney albums that I own, that they have songs that I happily skip through. It certainly speaks volumes about a band when they can release an album that can be the album of all killer and no filler.
Track 8 – ‘The Only Son of the Widow From Nain’ gets the groove back though. I fuckin’ love this song. Mark Arm’s vocals are as raw and familiar as when I first heard ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’, ‘Here Comes Sickness’, ‘This Gift’ and ‘Suck You Dry’ which undoubtedly are some of the band’s finest works and staples at every show they play. This song is a pearler, with its chorus, “I’m coming back, I’m coming back, I’m coming back for more, more, more, more.” You can’t keep a good man down. This is what makes Mudhoney the band they are.
Track 9 – ‘Sing this Song of Joy’ has a little bit of a country punk rock undertone to it. Definitely a good song, and maybe the beginning of a ever so slight change of direction for these cool cats from Seattle. As they have pretty well always stuck to their own unique sound over the last 20 odd years, I wonder if they will and can hold the angst of it for another 20.
Track 10 – ‘Douchebags on Parade’ is the final song on this album that was recorded over a few months late 2012 in Seattle and is the quintessential Mudhoney song. As loose as you can get, loud, thrashing of wailing guitars and Dan Peters’ uncompromising drumming style with Mark Arm’s huge raspy and nasally vocals with his typical out there, deprecating lyrics.
Overall a pretty good album , I reckon it would have made a killer EP if they’d have removed a few of the tracks in the middle of the album but hey, that’s what music is about right? You gotta love to hate something in rock and roll.
Sub Pop
6.5/10
Reviewer: Adam Barbuto