Primus
Brown Album

THE REVIEW

Tim Alexander was gone.

Tim "Herb" Alexander, the versatile drummer of Primus, had left the group right at the peak of their popularity, thanks to the single "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" from the album "Tales From The Punchbowl." The remaining Claypool and Larry "Ler" LaLonde, therefore, had their work cut out for them: how to replace Herb? Rumors were swirling, mentioning replacements like Mike Bordin of Faith No More, but in the end, the choice fell on Bryan "Brain" Mantia, former drummer of Praxis (a group that included Buckethead, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, and Claypool himself, who would later form Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains with Mantia).

Fans were concerned that with the change of drummer, group dynamics might radically change; from a more technical and powerful drummer like Alexander, they had moved to one more groove-oriented like Mantia: would this perhaps influence the music of Claypool and LaLonde as well? This "Brown Album" provides the answer.

The tragicomic electoral speech of "The Return of Sathington Willoughby" (a character that already appeared in the debut album "Frizzle Fry") seems designed to confuse the listener: behind the guitar jabs of Ler, behind the relentless drumming of Mantia, behind the powerful slaps of Claypool, you can sense that something is different. The funkier rhythms of previous albums have given way to mostly hard and rocky, sarcastically gloomy atmospheres; so too does Claypool's voice, which until then had been carried in most songs to the brink of the ridiculous and cartoonish, in this brown album lowers in tone, almost becoming one with the sound produced by the instruments: a sarcastic litany permeates the tracks of this album.

From obsessive pieces like "Shake Hands With Beef" and "Camelback Cinema," to wonderfully over-the-top songs like "Over The Falls," you can hear how Primus manages to completely change register, almost completely closing with the sounds used in the past, yet despite this, remaining 100% themselves. The times of "My Name Is Mud" and "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" seem distant, but they are still there, Primus. So different from the past, yet at the same time the usual fantastic jesters who with their horribly ridiculous stories and caricature-like characters live in their plastiline universe, so small and different from ours, yet at the same time so near and frighteningly tangible.

"Remember this day," thus ends the track closing the album, "Arnie"; perhaps Claypool, LaLonde, and Mantia wanted to give us a warning. They wanted to tell us to remember the day they spoke to us of that universe we considered just something distant, simply clownish, what we thought was a farce: well, better get it out of your head.

That world of farce told to us by Primus, of politicians preaching everything and its opposite to win votes, that world of singers setting themselves on fire in front of the audience, that world of golden boys shooting people without remorse, that world exists.

And it's out there.