Meat Puppets

You'd never know it's been 12 years since brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood made a Meat Puppets record together, as these songs sound exactly like what should have come right after 1995's No Joke. More sedate than the arresting insanity of their classic '80s output, this batch of songs is still appealingly gitched. From the hypnotic gibberish about "your aphid master" in the opening number to the six-minute freak out that ends it all 15 tracks later, the album is like some giant insect that injects you with a paralyzing narcotic, then eats your limbs while you laugh with joy.

Once upon a time in the eighties, the Meat Puppets made more tuneful post-hardcore albums than three stoned Arizonans had any right to. But though this comeback celebrates the parole of (ex-) junkie bassist Cris Kirkwood, tuneful it ain't. Best track by far: trancey death-cowpunk finale. Whoopee. (Grade - **)