Mudhoney Articles
Stylus Magazine
October '02
Mudhoney
Since We've Become Translucent
The leaves on the trees scream it whenever you leave the house: summer
is over. The greens are fading, making way for the yellows, oranges
and reds that will rapidly give way to various dead browns. Some people
love this time of year; walking beneath the new colors, wearing sweaters
but no jackets, hearing the crunch of dead leaves beneath their feet.
Dead leaves make me cringe. No matter what color they adopt before hitting
the ground, they pale in comparison to their lush former selves and they
signal the imminent arrival of winter: barren, boring and seemingly endless.
The promise of spring and the joy of summer disappear in the blink of an eye:
one day it's July and you're seeking shelter from the heat in the shade of a
poplar, next thing you know it's September and you're raking that same tree's
leaves.
Mudhoney's summer ended years ago. The blinding foliage of Mudhoney
and Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge was already changing color on Piece
of Cake; with the help of Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew and
My Brother the Cow, the leaves curled, shrivelled and fell off.
Mudhoney's explosive greatness became obscured by the dead vegetation of their
mid- to late-90s output. Most people can tolerate a great band's autumn, but
few will stand by and risk frostbite when that same band trundles off into winter.
The first half of Since We've Become Translucent finds Mudhoney mired
in post-New Year's January: frustrating, numbing and no fun whatsoever. The
drowsy pysch groove that begins the album is a welcome surprise, but the
seven-minute "Baby Can You Dig the Light" not only climaxes at its halfway
point, but it does so by segueing into the Stooges' "Dirt". The song then
peels back into an airy, bluesy jam with a dusty acoustic guitar as its axis
and gives a glimpse at what's in store for much of the album: a lack of energy,
watered down wit and exhausted riffs.
"The Straight Life" could rightfully be an outtake from Five Dollar Bob's,
a slowed, sloughed-off, impotent example of the fuzz-covered rock Mudhoney once
excelled at creating. All the key ingredients are present -- Dan Peters'
continually rolling drum attack, the sharp slop of Steve Turner and Mark Arm's
guitars and Arm's dry sneer -- they're just not being stirred with as much
fervour as they used to be.
Since We've Become Translucent's greatest flaw -- its dumbed-downedness --
becomes apparent and sad as the album's first half goes on. Mudhoney seem to
be trying awfully hard to fit in with the new century's garage rockers -- not
the ones signing million dollar advances, but those who populate the rosters of
labels like Dionysus, Sympathy, Cherry Red and Get Hip -- but they're too smart
and have too many great songs behind them to make such a transition smooth or
inconspicuous. The double entendres of "Where the Flavor Is" fall flat -- too
obvious, too easy -- as does the horn section that tries desperately to infuse
some life into the track. "In the Winner's Circle" is a slow, desolate blues
trudge that sounds an awful lot like a bad band trying to rewrite "Mudslide",
even though the song's crescendo is the album's first sign of life. "Our Time
Is Now", while slow and at times driving, is killed by Arm's lyrics. ("Our time
is coming/Here comes our time/Our time is now/This is our time.")
But things begin turning around with "Dyin' For It", the first hint of classic
Mudhoney; not just a song that sounds like an old Mudhoney tune, but one that
rocks with the feel, the spirit and the energy of their best material. That
having been said, "Dyin'" is nowhere near as good as anything on Superfuzz
Bigmuff, but it is as blistering as anything the band's done in the ten
years since they were last on Sub Pop. The screaming wahs, hacking reverb and
quadruple guitar solo fade-out are as refreshing as the sight of melting snow.
The improvement trend is maintained for the rest of the album. "Inside Job",
while filled with more lazy vocals, is heads-up, lively, jangly and propulsive.
It may be the best Monkeywrench song Mudhoney's ever kept for themselves. "Take
It Like a Man" is brilliant; perhaps the best rock song written this year. Sly,
fun, slippery and wise, "Take It" is the kind of song Mudhoney should be capable
of writing all the time. It's simple, driven by the same horns that couldn't save
"Where the Flavor Is" and fucking fun . "Take It Like A Man" is the song
that makes this album worth hearing. "Crooked and Wide" is menacing, discordant
stoner rock from a city full of heroin, a great slow Mudhoney song that belongs
in the ranks of "Broken Hands" and "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More".
The album ends with "Sonic Infusion", which, after a minute of atmospheric sludge,
explodes into the fastest, fiercest, finest blast of over the top MC5 ass-kick the
band has ever done. A relentless fortress of fuzz that almost obliterates the
memory of the first half of Since We've Become Translucent, "Sonic Infusion"
eventually cracks open, allowing the song's opening drone to waft back in, this
time accompanied by a sad violin and acid creep noises that assist in ending the
album on a note of utmost uncertainty.
Maybe those first five songs weren't January at all, but a blustery March; the
last dose of drab misery before the promising beauty of spring. If that is the
case, Mudhoney could be on the verge of another blistering summer. If not, at
least they are leaving us with a glimpse of their former heat, intensity and power,
one of those rare September sunburns that fill you with nostalgia as they peel the
skin off your back.
