Soundgarden and the taste of chicken

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by Jeremy Hart

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Thankfully, my fears were unjustified -- this album is indeed still Soundgarden, is not Led Zep revisited, and best of all, is damn good.

Fans of Soundgarden do need to be careful, though, because if it's anything, this is not Badmotorfinger II . The heavy metal shredding is all but gone on Superunknown . I repeat: Soundgarden is no longer available for covers of Circus or Metal Edge . Hell, lead singer Chris Cornell shaved his damn head.

Overall, I think this one kicks the shit out of Badmotorfinger . For one thing, it's a lot more stylistically varied. There are still a few "power-groove" tunes on here, like "Mailman," "Limo Wreck," "Let Me Drown" and "Spoonman," but the Soundgarden boys also delve partway (back) into goth, snatch up some post-punk melody and suck down a big helping of sunny and not-so-sunny psychedelia on the way.

"Head Down," one of bassist Ben Shepherd's two tunes on the album, is a droning wave of melancholy, dreamy and far away, but still defiant at the end.

"Black Hole Sun" is Beatles-ish psychedelia, with guitar that I swear sounds like keyboards, while "4th of July" is a grim dirge with a low guitar rumble that would scare Black Sabbath.

"My Wave" is closer to classic rock than anything else, but a Smashing Pumpkins-esque shimmer is washed over the top. Beautiful melodies are interspersed throughout, popping up right in the middle of pounding, ripping metal-style choruses.

Soundgarden is doing some serious experimenting with Superunknown , trying all different kinds of textures and styles and, for once, letting somebody besides Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil write the music.

Check out the Middle Eastern strangeness of "Half," complete with viola and cello and featuring Shepherd's distinctive voice. Then switch to the pretty melody of "The Day I Tried To Live;" maybe from there to "4th of July" or "Black Hole Sun," or switch to punk rock with "Kickstand." Every style under the sun, but all done well and all still Soundgarden.

The feel is still Soundgarden, deep and heavy, with a kind of melancholy, mystic swirl to it, but the music has taken some new, amazingly interesting turns.

THE MEICES

TASTES LIKE CHICKEN

A couple of decades ago, the Ramones proved that you could meld cheesy 1950s pop with surf-rock and punk, and they pretty much forged their own sound.

The Meices are what could conceivably happen if those good ol' deities of American punk actually got a brain transplant from Evan Dando (that Lemonheads dude). Punk with some truly brilliant melodic sense.

Okay, I'm pigeonholing this band -- so what? It's easy. Take how I just described this band and you'll have the recipe for its previous album Greatest Bible Stories Ever Told , but on this one they've added some new and unusual stuff.

The last three or four songs on here, from "Hopin' for a Ride" to "That Other Good One," are genuine punk-pop songs, jumping from quiet to loud to quiet again, while "Lettuce is Far Out" dips a bit into ambient/psychedelic noise before somebody hits the distortion pedal.

The masterpiece of this album is "Daddy's Gone to California." A dark, cynical bit of almost Neil Young-ish rock, you can sense the vague threat of being abandoned when vocalist/guitarist Joe sings "Daddy's gone to California/ Gonna finally lay in the sun ..." and then lets loose with a howl Kurt Cobain would be proud of.

Other good stuff: well, pick one. We've got punkish stuff of all kinds, from the essential waiting-to-get-high tune of "Until the Weekend" to the almost-metal Anthrax smashing that leads into the rampaging punk slam of "The Big Shitburger." "Hopin' for a Ride" is a quiet, semi-acoustic hitchhiking song, and "Now" starts with a great little sunshiny pop riff and some serious Soul Asylum influence.

My favorite thing about the Meices is the way they write lyrics. In the vein of "Alex Put Something In His Pocket" off Bible Stories , "Shitburger" has a total of two, honestly, two whole lines of lyrics. Who needs more, anyway? Fuck all that "verse-chorus" stuff, I'd much rather hear 'em howl "Are you ready sister?/Well, I'm ready sister" over and over until my head hurts.

Hey, it worked for the Ramones.

DYN@MUTT

A HANDBOOK FOR YOUNG SCIENTISTS

Consider me lying on the floor, shaking my head in bewilderment. I mean, I've loved the Dyno-boys for a while now, but goddamnit, this sounds almost too good.

This is Dyn@mutt's first CD release, and I must say it's a beauty. Very professional packaging, and even better production inside. (My God! You can actually understand the vocals!) Farrago has done a great job of putting the live energy of these three Will Rice guys on CD.

Enough babbling about the CD. About the music -- well, "not easy to get into" would be my first description. This is not your mother's music (unless Mom has strange body parts pierced, that is ), and it sure ain't MTV spoonfeeding.

Dyn@mutt's sound encompasses "progressive rock," like Rush, They Might Be Giants' weirdness, the intensity of punkers NoMeansNo, and even the occasional pop melody. They also owe a large debt to the now-defunct "scientist rock" outfit the Minutemen.

Of the tunes on here, about half are new, the rest re-done from their two earlier self-released tapes, fetch. and ...Like a Hamster Wheel . One of my favorites, the classic "Intruder," a friendly little song about a guy with a knife lurking out in your backyard, gets revamped and slowed down a bit for the intro, quietly waltzing along for a bit before ripping in at full-speed.

Everybody's favorite haircut song, "Thor's Barber" gets a new set of lyrics as "Crunchtime," and doesn't lose much of its impact in the process. "Rotten," another oldie, is a hyperactive, start-stop tune railing against corporate rock, among other things. The instrumental "E" still reminds me of Rush's "YYZ."

The new stuff is good, too; don't worry. The angry churning of "Yellow Stick" manages some pretty startling tension, and "Punk Contest" is ... well, I guess it must be basically what the name sounds like.

"Hamster Wheel" features some frantic, scrambling guitar, as well as bassist Chad Shaw's rambling musings about the (non)value of a college education and the importance of not blowing a Johnson Rod.

As for "Ambulance Chaser," something tells me these guys have had their fill of those fucking Rodney D. Young commercials. The album closes out with a short but sweet cover of recently-departed (Vitamin) Seed's "Runt," featuring guitarist/vocalist Dave Deggeler on drums and a mellow, melodic bass.

The "Dyn@mutt sound"? Hell, I don't know. Take Deggeler's raging, sometimes very dissonant guitar and wavery, strained singing, plus Shaw's wild bass lines, vocals and threatening rants, plus Doug ("Thor") Dillaman's weird-time drumming -- and there you go. "Scientist rock" sounds good to me.

Anyway, support a great band of Rice folks and buy their album ($10 from Farrago Records, P.O. Box 130148, Houston, TX 77219; E-mail farrago@delphi.com). Maybe if we try hard enough, the members of Dyn@mutt will become the rock stars they ought to be. Love 'em -- idolize 'em -- invite 'em into your home.

And finally, I'd like to bid a tearful farewell to the very first band I ever saw at Rice, Venus in Furs. If you missed the stunning three-hour set they kicked out (35 songs?! You boys are insane!), then you really missed a once-in-a-lifetime show. Out with a bang.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the March 18, 1994 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
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