by Primus
Format: Vinyl
Interscope INT2-90126
We last left Primus in 1993, with the release of Pork Soda, the year they were the headlining act of Lollapalooza. The following year they played the Woodstock '94 Music Festival, which was decidedly not the peace and love fest that the original Woodstock professes to be. The band increased in popularity in the 90's and even appeared on David Letterman and Conan O'Brien. The band wrote the theme song to South Park in 1996 and had a few changes in their lineup, with Claypool being the leader.
Which brings us to the second (and last) Primus album we will review in this column. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by this album. After Pork Soda, I wasn't exactly in any rush to listen to this album again. I must not have listened to it much after I bought it and I didn't remember much about it.
However, this is a great album pretty much from beginning to end. The album is a two-LP set and the title may be a pun on the Beatles' "White Album" and maybe even Prince's and Metallica's "Black Albums," so with that in mind, we are expecting the band will have something to say over the four sides of this LP...and they do!
The album is filled with a lot of varied styles but they are all identifiably Primus, with Les Claypool's bass playing front and center throughout. The album starts off with a "public service" announcement of sorts, "The Return of Sathington Willoughby," which will remind you of Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh" from The Wall. "Fisticuffs" is another tale about a violent person, with typical film noir-esque Primus lyrics. "Golden Boy" features a monster funk riff that will make you want to dance around your listening room. (Pull the shades, please,) This is followed by a nice sonic change of pace, "Over the Falls," which uses acoustic guitar effectively.
The sound throughout this album is raw and honest. It sounds like Primus is playing live in your listening room, which is fine by me. There is a fairly well defined sound stage with some decent depth. Sometimes the speakers seem to distort as they are driven to the brink of what they can handle. This is especially true of the drums. I believe the distorted bass is part of Claypool's sound, but at times it made me wonder if I had blown a fuse in Classe amp. It sounds like the band was playing very loud and overloaded the equipment. Keep in mind, this was in an era when rock was just starting to get away from that horrible processed sound that defines most of the rock recordings from the 80's and 90's. Kudos to Primus for "keeping it real" in the sound department. This keeps both of the albums I've listened to from sounding dated.
The album is great throughout, with interesting lyrics and a completely original style. These guys can play, even though they definately lean to the punk/alternative side of things. You can hear some Nirvana in their generally downbeat lyrics and in Claypool's squirellyvoice. Side 2 features one great tune after another from "Shake Hands With Beef," a funky stomper, to the hilarious "Puddin' Tane," a completely insane Primus-fied country hoedown on mescaline.
Like Pork Soda, as the album goes on, the music gets more experimental, but this time it works, giving the album variety and flow. Primus seems to make albums, not just collections of songs. The changing textures and sonics keep things from getting monotonous and the album never wears out it's welcome. My favorite song on side four is the funky "Kalamazoo," which reminds me a little of Morphine (the band). You can hear Primus expanding their sound and growing as a band. The penultimate song on the album is "The Chastising of Renegade," another great song about another one of those crazy, dysfunctional, murderous hicks Claypool loves to write about. The album closes as it began with the spoken-word beatnic poem "Arnie," which leaves you on a chilling note. (The song is about a person dumps kerosine on themselves and lights themselves on fire to make a political statement.)
A recurring theme throughout Brown Album, is the disfunction our society seems to create. The album is populated with characters who have been abused by their families and oppressed by authority. This underlying theme is never preachy because the music is so engaging but if you read the lyrics printed on the gatefold jacket, this comes through loud and clear. Like Pork Soda, Primus creates a portrait of a violent, ignorant and deeply flawed United States. But unlike Pork Soda, the lyrics never resort to stupidity in quest of a cheap laugh. We laugh and groove with Primus throughout the album but are left with a bitter taste when we are done.
This album makes me think I should check out some more albums by Primus. From the responses I've gotten on the last blog, the consensus seems to be that Primus' best albums were their first ones and it was all downhill from there, but Brown Album suggests that Primus continued to mature and grow musically as they went on. I know we can't know that from just two albums out of many the band has released but I can at least suggest that if you liked Primus in the early days you might want to check this album out as well. If you do, let me know what you think...
Up next:
We begin our multi-part look at the albums of Prince!
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