Brand new Meat Puppets interview & performance from KEXP

Now, however, the breadth of instrumentation is no longer in the back seat. It’s right there in the guts of the entire record. And while it is not overstatement to declare a connection here to the heights of the E Street Band, the results from last summer’s sessions clearly continue the Puppets’ trademark forging of subtle yet iconoclastic lyrical sweetness and remarkable musicianship. Were a short description required, confidence is the defining term and attitude. This is a record that is brilliantly framed by the band’s sometimes folksy, always fluid wanderings. The Puppets gladly let the material step out as first fiddle, content with understanding songs this strong only come along once in a great while, and better to serve them than the other way around.

It is what makes the Puppets musings so difficult to classify. They ambitiously dart the melodic spectrum between buoyant pop structure like album-opener “Sewn Together” and the grand sweep of “Clone”, two of the precision-perfect gems that will come to represent this record as a keeper. The album rides to close in pure pop fashion. The infectious “Love Mountain”, a song that harkens back better than a decade, at last weaving itself free of Curt’s inner awareness, emerges taut yet jangly enough to please George Harrison and George Martin. That’s no exaggeration, either. Sure, absolutely, Springsteen and the Beatles and Pink Floyd are mighty comparisons, but let’s face it, what is due is due.