I THINK MY BRAIN IS FULL

The Lucky Ones - Mudhoney. In what can only be described as “a triumphant return to form”, The Lucky Ones sees Mudhoney doing what they do best - rocking out and sneering. After the somewhat disappointing previous two albums, Under A Billion Suns and Since We’ve Become Translucent, the much-discussed four piece stamp on your face as though it were an overdrive pedal and help themselves to the contents of your fridge. And you like it when they do it.

From the opening track, I’m Now, onwards, the album treads a fairly familiar path to that of Superfuzz Bigmuff, their first release. Ballsy riffs chug away in your face and large bass and drums sounds very tightly underpin the racket. There’s a charming roughness to the whole album that probably reflects the fact that it was recorded in just three and a half days. Although the songs are a little samey throughout, they’re all of such a high quality that it’s easy to overlook it. In particular, The Open Mind shines, despite sounding a little like Weight-era Rollins Band, with Mark Arm sounding just as much like a defiant, raspberry blowing teenager, as he ever did.

As is customary in this situation, I’ll make some comparison to robots now. The Lucky Ones doesn’t sound like robots at all. However, it does sound a bit like someone becoming quite frustrated with a robot, then kicking the shit out of it. Then, with a satisfied grin on their face, drinking a bottle of whisky and pinching a few girl’s behinds. Which means it’s very good indeed.

If I had a star rating system, it would be out of 5. The Lucky Ones would garner itself a very respectable 4 stars, and it would be satisfied with it.