Album Review

The latest from the original Seattle rock quartet Mudhoney opens with "Where is the Future," a song about all the cool shit we were supposed to get after we nuked those commies back to the Stone Age, and I have to agree with everything Mark Arm has to say about it. You can take your fuckin' Segway and stick it up there wheels-first, Jack! I already have legs. And did my jet pack get lost in the e-mail or something? Instead, I'm sitting at home watching Girls Gone Wild commercials in slow motion on Tivo. I'm sorry, but that is not progress, my friends. Which segways (sic) us nicely into the standout track: "Hard-On for War." Arm brings it lyrically with "It's our patriotic duty to make sweet love tonight/come on, little girl!" and "Now I know why dirty old men are always pushin' for war!" That's some Jim Morrison get-your-kicks-before-all-the-shit-hits-the-fan jive. Not bad from the guy who ruined Bloodloss. The horns from Mudhoney's last full-length (2002's Since We've Become Translucent) are back, too, and the band makes expert use of them on the last track, "Blindspots." Mudhoney is heavier, tighter and better then ever on Suns, but I still miss the seven-minute "Sonic Infusion" from Translucent. That was getting close to jet-pack territory—closer than a Segway, at least.