Disco de Meat Puppets: “Huevos”

I had my doubts when popping "Huevos" into my CD player. All the reviews I had read suggested a subpar Pups record, something better than their later work, but certainly no "Up on the Sun." And yeah, this is no "Up on the Sun." But "Huevos" really has it's own strengths. Where "Up on the Sun" would seduce you with ethereal guitar work, "Huevos" came in barreling two-fisted, bashed you over the head with a riff, and dragged you back to the bar. There are many incredible songs here (I enjoyed Paradise, Look at the Rain, Bad Love, Sexy Music, Fruit, I Can't be Counted On, and to a lesser extent, Automatic Mojo.) It's a wonderful album, although the special features on the reissue aren't exactly interesting (unlike some of the earlier reissues.) However, I'd definitely recommend this album to any of my friends.

I'm a huge fan of all things Meat Puppet-y. Huevos was the most difficult one to warm up to. The vocals are WAY out front, most obviously with the song "Look at the Rain".

Having said that, this is the album I put on most frequently. "Fruit" and "Sexy Music" are my two favorite MP songs. The rhythm section takes a ZZ Top-ish "southern boogie" tack that the Puppets really used to their advantage to propel the songs along. They used the same technique in the subsequent "Monsters" (which contains the fabulous "Light"...)

I kinda like that they got a little Billy Gibbons in my Meat Puppets...both bands have a similar fried from the desert sun sensibility and it gives you a reason to go back and rediscover ZZ Top.

I'd always heard the Meat Puppets were great, so I asked a friend who's a big fan for a recommended first purchase, and what a great recommendation! Huevos was my most listened-to CD for the first few months after I bought it, and it keeps getting better. It's particularly good driving music. "Sexy Music" is epic, and "Look at the Rain" and "Crazy" stick in your head for days! I love the Dead and punk rock, and no one has ever combined them like the Pups. Highly recommended!

This is my second favorite Pups album after "Too High To Die" which is one of the greatest albums of the nineties. It's less quirky than MPII and "Up On The Sun" (both great albums that you should own, btw), but it rocks harder and it's still plenty weird, just read some of the lyrics!

As other reviewers have pointed out, this is a "live-er" sounding album with less reliance on production. As Curt Kirkwood explained in an interview, "huevos" which means "eggs" is also Southwestern slang for chutzpah, as in, they had the huevos to record these tunes live in one or two takes. Despite the sparse production, this album still sounds very psychedelic, as the Kirkwoods seem to have the freakout gene embedded in their DNA.

If you're just getting into the Pups, you'll probably want to begin with their more heralded works, but don't miss this one - it's the perfect album for rolling down the windows and hitting the accelerator. Just be sure to turn it up!

I find that this album and "up on the sun" are cut from the same cloth. To me the only difference is that "huevos" is a more concise and consistent collection of what's great about the band ("up on the sun" is a little too meandering for me but still well worth owning). And while I love other albums of theirs - "forbidden places", "monsters", "too high" - it is with "huevos" and "up on the sun" where the production matches the music perfectly - spare, unaffected, intimate. Both albums put you right in the band's backyard.

Catchy, quirky, groovy, country, guitarsy, and different without being too weird. Even if you don't love this album, I think you'll like it.