#452 Mudhoney - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Again, this was on some list. I'm legitimately getting desperate for places to find new stuff. I mean, there's a million albums I haven't heard, but which ones? The obvious choices are running thin.

If you only galnced the most mainstream end of the grunge story you'd be forgiven for thinking that Nirvana was the hardest thing to come out of the whole movement, the only real rockers. Pearl Jam muddled in core classic rock, Stone Temple Pilots were a touch nasty for an album and then weirded up while mellowing out, and various followers stuck to the same blueprint. Only Nirvana, among the really heavy popular hitters, seemed to have legitimate rage, legitimate unhinged energy.

Of course, in the earlier and/or undergroundier days there were all manner of scuzzbuckets, from Dinosaur Jr. to The Jesus Lizard. And these guys, apparently, who I never really heard.

I've already set it up, some scummy rock, all sneering vocals, dischordant post-velvets chords, and even some sickly organss, sounding a bit like Black Sabbath and Iron Butterfly had a baby and this was his snotty shit of a cousin. I mean that in the best possible way.

It works best when it kicks off the mud and engages in some actual angular, proto-Dismemberment Plan repetitive punk, as on Something so Clear, or just outright garagey thrash, as on Fuzzgun '91. But then there's the 6 minute Broken Hands that starts off by quoting a Neil Young song's opening riffs and then proceeds to ape his 6 minute song structures, without any of the pathos or riffage. Everything else falls roughly in between.

What ever happened to Mudhoney? The signed to Sub Pop, started touring with Sonic Youth, put this album out, by all accounts were on trajectory to indie rock greatness. And then 2 months later, Nevermind came out and shaped the face of grunge's path to the mainstream. There's some similarities between the albums, a similar dissonance and seething disinterest, but this is comparatively thin, too unwilling to please, too restrained in its disgust to grab the world by the face. Guess they'll have to settle for indie cred.

An interesting piece of history, some clever riffage, but, to my ear, see above:simultaneously not tuneful enough and not arty enough, outshined by bands that came after and learned from their blueprint 3/5

You might like this if: if you haven't heard this by now you might have missed your window to love it, but you still might like it: it's dissonant and hooky, impassioned and dispassionate, a classic slice of sludgy, punky grunge