Ween are silly young men. tr00f.
Imagine two stoner-friends being locked in a recording studio for a few weeks with whatever instrument they want, and with this you have Jean and Deen Ween. Most of their albums are packed full of absurdity, and enough variety to make a circus blush. What is so unique about Ween is that you never no what lies ahead, which makes for an interesting listen, and guessing game. Singing is usually distorted and warped into a humurous alien-bellow, or whatever you think sounds right. And to my humble self, Ween are one of the must underappreciated bands in the history of music. Why, because they are silly? Possibly. But it takes time to understand where Ween are coming from, and what they are trying to do with their music... or what they
aren't trying to do with their music. They make charming, funny, and sometimes even honest music. Hell, they even made a (quite fine) country album,
12 Gold Country Hits, released a year before
Mollusk.
Mollusk unsurprisingly enough, is a sort of concept album, though it is a very loose one at that. Quite a few songs are based around nautical topics, as Ween had been traveling along the eastern edge of the United States. Even the songs have a sort of cohesive sound quality to them, even though it is literally impossible for such studio masterminds like Ween to stay in one place for very long. On
Mollusk, Ween take their music to a (somewhat) more mature state, with plenty of acoustic guitars. Do not be fooled, though, this is still Ween, after all. Songs like "Mutilated Lips" and "Pink Eye (On My Leg)", with it's vacuum cleaner melod are still as strange and awkward as any previous Ween material. "Polka Dot Tail" keeps this quality, but has a sort of
Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles feel to it, with it's rather silly lyrics ("have you ever seen a whale with a polka dot tail?") and a psychadelic backdrop. Ween also run through even
more musical styles, including Irish sing-alongs ("The Blarney Stone"), the perplexing ("Waving My Dick In the Wind"), and quite possibly the catchiest song of all, "Ocean Man", a surfesque tune with the trademark voices, and a rather respectable guiar solo.
Honestly, what
doesn't this album have? Here, Ween take their craft and actually put it into well crafted
songs, with just enough melody and just a pinch of marijuana. And just to smack you in the face, the album ends on the beautiful, almost heartwarming (!!) "She Wanted to Leave (Reprise)", where impersonating the Irish never sounded so charming in such an...odd way. And maybe that's what you need to expect from Ween. We all want something different, but yet they do it in such a conventional way that you can come to enjoy it after time. And if you wanted to know, this is Ween's best album.
Touche.
