Mudhoney - The Lucky Ones (Sub Pop)

Mudhoney have never really received the respect they deserve over the years. To the uninformed, Nirvana were the grunge band that started it all, but trace the lineage back, and right at the start of that poorly monikered genre were Mudhoney.

Trace it back further, and you'll find Green River, a band that featured members of Mudhoney, and Mother Love Bone (who would eventually morph into Pearl Jam) whose frenetic garage/metal hybrid set down a template that was shortly to hold a world in thrall.

Drummer Dan Peters filled in for Nirvana inbetween Chad Channing and Dave Grohl and original 'Honey bass player Matt Lukin was a founding member of super sludge outfit Melvins. All in all Mudhoney's constituent parts have been at the foundations of one the biggest musical movements of the '90s. As a whole, it would be easy to argue that Mudhoney have been cruelly overlooked in favour of the likes of Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam.

Go back to Superfuzz and Touch Me I'm Sick and you'll find the roar of overdriven guitars and Arms off kilter vocals still sound fresh and vicious. That was then of course, and The Lucky Ones is now; so are Mudhoney about to garner the appreciation they deserve?

It's possible that they might with the retrospective reviews of material that is twenty years old, but if The Lucky Ones were to be released on its own, it would be unlikely to raise many eyebrows. That is not to say that it is a bad record - not in the slightest. In fact The Lucky Ones finds Mudhoney in full on Garage mode, rocking like twenty year olds rather than a bunch of guys well into their forties.

Recorded in 3 and a half days, this is vibrant rock at its best. I'm Now is a punchy opener blending Mudhoney's influences from the '60s and '70s perfectly. It's also got one hell of a chorus, plenty of that trademark guitar sound that is perfectly adapted to shredding ears and a piano part that is whipped directly from I Wanna Be Your Dog. It shows that while Mudhoney can create one hell of a cathartic noise, there was always a perfectly formed tune at its heart.

The whole album is a bundle of fuzzed up joy (check out the primal roar of The Open Mind) always sounding like Mudhoney at their prime. The sound isn't new, but then it never really was. Perhaps the most vital point is that this is an album that sounds like a band playing. It hasn't been lovingly ironed out and stripped of its charms. You can practically hear the strings being hit, the feedback is right there, and Arm's voice is about as good as it has ever been.

The Lucky Ones is unlikely to garner any new fans for Mudhoney, which is a shame because this is one of the best albums of their career. For those who like their rock raw and full of attitude; this is how garage rock should be done, and there isn't a band around who do it like Mudhoney.

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