Meat Puppets
Up On The Sun

THE REVIEW

Of all the groups that contributed to the birth of grunge, the most artistically valid are very likely the Meat Puppets, creators of a country-hardcore that underwent various modifications and transformations throughout the '80s. The band of brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood first made a name for themselves with an innovative and fleeting cow-punk (the one in "In A Car" and "Meat Puppets") and gradually refined their technique and style, achieving immediate maturity and perfection on the albums "Meat Puppets II" and "Up On The Sun". They were very much genius, and like all genius artists who promoted important musical inventions, they did not meet with commercial favor until a well-known Seattle band performed some of their songs live.

Although "Meat Puppets II" is their most renowned and inspiring work, "Up On The Sun" remains the artistic peak reached by Meat Puppets. There is not a piece that should not be considered for its emotional charge or its effective instrumental ideas. All that was done was further softening the tones of the beginnings (a path that had already been partially undertaken for "Meat Puppets II"), perfecting a psychedelic country, at times progressive. Even Curt Kirkwood's voice changes register, ranging from catastrophic screams to a disenchanted litany, symbolically moving from furiously denounced pain to resignation.

The titletrack-opener is a serene country song, with complex melodic passages that soon turn to melancholy, exacerbated in the verse «Not too much more, too much more». "Maiden's Milk" is an instrumental full of guitar inventions, music for open spaces that transitions from the initial medieval atmosphere to the lightness of the whistled verse and optimistic bass lines. In "Away" we find instead a simpler, more immediate structure and rhythm section, melodies barely sketched, almost whispered, balancing between joy and depression, also due to Curt Kirkwood's interpretation. "Animal Kingdom" is a fleeting fun that combines psychedelia (the "strange" visions proposed by the lyrics) and medieval settings. It is built entirely on a single melodic phrase, around which a series of sudden instrumental variations are articulated. "Hot Pink" is halfway between Neil Young and the Grateful Dead of "American Beauty", boasts effective and well-defined bass lines, paints natural landscapes with words, and forcibly drags melancholic motifs, sung by Curt with usual negligence, to give a darker touch to the piece.

Among the most interesting tracks of the album is "Swimming Ground", which unfolds between guitar arpeggios drenched in sadness and carefree openings, although it progresses towards the end into melancholy. A bit similar to the Gun Club, but more pop, is "Buckethead", which flows pleasantly with vocal lines that intertwine perfectly with a mandolin-like guitar, suddenly leading to an intriguing instrumental interlude. "Too Real" is based, both in text and music, on contrasting moods, boredom interspersed with bursts of happiness, rain and rays of sunlight, only to get lost again in reality, which isn't entirely rosy. Toward the end of the album, the masterpieces begin to concentrate, introduced by "Enchanted Pork Fist", a convulsive indie rock comparable to the contemporary Dinosaur Jr. of the first album. "Seal Whales" is the best instrumental track ever made by the Meat Puppets (along with "Aurora Borealis", on "Meat Puppets II"), full of emotions, moving passages, incompleteness (the conclusion is almost indefinite). But the absolute masterpiece of the album is "Two Rivers": it starts with a deep and powerful bass, which blends with a pleasantly obsessive guitar arpeggio, until the verse arrives, which opens into a guitar phrase interspersed with harmonics, all completely dissociated from the steep paths of the bass. The singing is a lazy mumble, giving a clear sensation that everything is falling into the void, that there is no way out, despite the instrumental optimism of the piece.

"Creator" is the symbolic track of the album, a progressive folk where Curt Kirkwood drags melodies suspended between sadness and happiness, hope and disillusionment, depression and a will to live, enriched by his peculiar vocal style. The Meat Puppets decide to end their best album this way, with a little jewel built on antithetical feelings, which are then the foundation, the essence of "Up On The Sun".

One of those classic albums that must be felt, not just listened to.