Mudhoney
The Lucky Ones
Sub Pop Records
By Kevin Hakansson
While casual observers recognize super-huge groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden as forerunners of the “Seattle sound” that broke in the early ‘90s, it’s entirely possible that none of these multi-platinum selling rock gods were the most important band to the Pacific Northwest’s grunge revolution. Forming in 1989, Mudhoney was actually the first band to hit it big on Sub Pop Records, then the home base for much of what was going on musically in Seattle. In fact, it’s been said that Kurt Cobain was a big Mudhoney fan, and may have drawn influence from the garage/grunge quartet. While Cobain may have checked out years ago, Mudhoney continues on today with The Lucky Ones, a record that sounds as though it could have easily come out during the band’s rambunctious youth.
The Lucky Ones is album number eight for Mudhoney, and it shows a return to the band’s roots. While 2006’s Under a Billion Suns was generally considered a political album the new record gets back to the raw, borderline sloppy garage rock the band has long excelled at: “I’m Now” pretty clearly illustrates just what the band intends to do on Lucky Ones, and proves prophetic. Vocalist Mark Arm shouts over the sound of a cheap, distorted guitar amp, much like he did years ago on “Touch Me I’m Sick,” the song that really put Mudhoney on the map.
Though they made their name by ushering in the early stages of grunge rock, Mudhoney quickly turned to a much more raw, unpolished sound. While becoming less polished than grunge may seem impossible, the band did it with great success. Interestingly enough, the band maintained the same understated production values on the new record. The title track is about as raw as they come: the tempos are inconsistent, the guitar distortion intentionally weak, but it's about as earnest a song as you'll hear on the record.
While Mudhoney isn't exactly breaking much new ground here, The Lucky Ones is full of tracks that fit in nicely with the rest of the band's catalog. "Next Time" is a slow, chugging drone, Arm's bleat an intoxicating chant. "And The Shimmering Light" injects a touch of melody into what's an otherwise heavy album. Perhaps most appropriate is "What's This Thing?," an introspective, tripped out ditty that can't help but conjur the '80s Mudhoney that Michael Azzerad wrote about in Our Band Could Be Your Life. Mudhoney's still playing the same game they started playing 20 years ago, and they're still doing at quite a high level.
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