Meat Puppets
Huevos

Brief Prologue: Talking about the Meat Puppets is a bit like having nitroglycerin in your underwear, you need to be very careful.

For fans of the genre, or rather the era (since we're dealing with a mutable band from album to album, not identifiable with the simple sequence of letters g-r-u-n-g-e), this is an unmissable album. I mentioned the big word "grunge" earlier, just to place it in a somewhat blurry period, not defined like the '90s, as the album is from 1987, and believe me, it's just an "official aspect" of the object in question, a tiny inscription on the back of the package and nothing more... none of the 9 tracks suggest a specific style that can be placed in past decades.

This masterpiece, and I don't say this lightly, is one of those pieces you'll find at Virgin (for example, I saw it in Belfast years ago) or in the best-equipped local shops, where (drawing from a song by Offlaga Disco Pax) the owner, strictly alternative, speaks little and advises even less. That's what happened to my brother. The owner dug out from oblivion (meaning the dusty back room) "Huevos" with its unmistakable cover. When my brother presented his new purchase to me, I teased him a bit for the cover, joking that it was the poster for the sausage festival, when in fact it was very nice. Speaking of covers, I'd like to inform you that all the packaging for the many albums of the group were designed by Curt Kirkwood (guitar and vocals), in my opinion quite well.

Back to the music... I started listening to the album already intrigued by the strange cover: -first listen: what kind of voice is this!? -second listen: is he spitting on the microphone????? -third listen: it's not that bad, just need to get used to it a bit. -…

Without listing all the steps toward a real understanding of the album, I have come to the conclusion that I have in hand pure energy, whether it's love, anger, or something else I don't know, but it's energy. You can feel the energy pulsating from the mouth of the Kirkwoods (they alternate in some tracks), blending with the instruments never tired of moving and producing sounds and notes, making all this devastating. The Kirkwoods have the task of shaping it all, starting from a block of marble masterpieces like David were made (but let's leave these discussions to those who understand something about it), and perhaps the music of the Meat Puppets without the voices would be a bit like a piece of marble without a sculptor, precious but still just a piece of marble.

The group, as many of you certainly know, is composed of the Kirkwood brothers (Kurt and Cris) and Derrik Bostrom (currently, if I'm not mistaken, Meat Puppets should exist but with a different lineup, the last release is indeed 'Golden Lies' from 2000, in which only Curt is present, just to have another job massacred by the critics). Critics define this album as the most commercial of the band, perhaps such a transcendental change compared to previous works wasn't digested, but fundamentally these are just opinions, I see it as the album of consecration, also because just associating the term commercial with the Meat Puppets seems blasphemous to me. The group in question started from a kind of punk to then arrive at "Huevos", unique in its genre. I believe the secret ingredient is precisely Curt's voice (so hated during the first listens) that gives life, transforms what otherwise would be the classic American country, or blues or who knows what. Anyone who listened to the album will understand well how some songs could have had the potential to climb the famous chart of best-selling records if only the group had decided to make it all more accessible to everyone, but this, as we know, didn’t happen. Kirkwood indeed changed his style in singing, guitars blasting, and distortion always on the ready, with a bass and drums managing it all just to not get lost.

I simply find little gems "Paradise", "Look At The Rain", "Crazy" (the intro astonishingly resembles something by Pearl Jam), my absolute favorites are "Sexy Music" (really makes you stay glued with your ear to the speaker, also highlights the group's compositional ability, a beautiful text) and "I Can’t Be Counted On".

In conclusion, "Huevos" is a rhythmic album, surprisingly (you might think I'm crazy), innovative and different from everything that climbed to the throne thanks to Nirvana (I refer to Meat Puppets 2), more complete, on the same line of thought and simultaneously less confusing than many other works of the group (even if deserving of admiration and of great quality).