Review Summary: VI: By loosening themselves up even more than when they first formed, Primus make their first major misstep in their career.
Another LP, another chance for Primus to throw everyone for a loop. The SoCal trio was riding higher than ever after
Pork Soda, their first LP to debut in the Top 10. It’s difficult to believe that these wonky progheads were commanding the airwaves with their intricate and bizarre music. The band’s fourth LP was another shift in tone and aesthetic, leaving the eerie, backwoods horror stories behind and taking things back to a less frightening time.
Tales From the Punchbowl is Primus loosening themselves up again, but with that desire to stay dynamic, the band makes their first major misstep for their career: loosening themselves up
too much.
Tales From the Punchbowl has Primus once again changing the course for their sound. While
Pork Soda was a dark, bleak, and unsettling record,
Tales From the Punchbowl lays off the atmosphere and moves back to the wonky, proggy sound of
Sailing the Seas of Cheese. The trio aim to loosen the shackles they put on themselves and harken back to a much lighter era of music, one where slamming bass rhythms and snarling carny vocals didn’t symbolize a backwoods murder. Les Claypool’s bass rhythms don’t move into the heavier territory of
Frizzle Fry, nor do they have exactly the kind of steady cushioning of
Sailing the Seas of Cheese. Claypool instead delivers a new kind of bass sound for Primus, one that confidently straddles the line of funk and metal. “Mrs. Blaileen” mixes slamming thumps with a catchy melody, a fine example of Claypool’s mastery of the electric bass. Claypool finds some time to briefly move back into the
Pork Soda sound with “Hellbound 17 ½ (Theme From)”, but he mostly sticks to a more relaxed bass beat throughout the album. As for his vocals, they capture the snarls, yodels and wails from all walks of Primus; he even gets to offer some country “heees” in “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” Claypool’s instantly identifiable vocal style is as sharp as ever.
But Claypool isn’t the only member with some new tricks. Guitarist Larry LaLonde is back in the saddle, laying off the texture and letting his Satriani teachings take full control. The twangy solos in songs like “Professor Nutbutter’s House of Treats” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” are some of the best examples of LaLonde’s virtuoso playing, a comfortable return to tradition. While he does move into some more
Pork Soda-era sounds on tracks like “Glass Sandwich”, LaLonde’s guitars aren’t strained and shrill. It’s great to hear the rougher twangs instead of the siren alarms from his axe. As for drummer Tim Alexander, where do I start?
Tales From the Punchbowl, without a doubt, has some of Alexander’s best drum work in the entire Primus discography. A cornucopia of jazz-inspired fills and grooves, the album oozes polyrhythmic joy. Alexander dances across the kit in “Year of the Parrot” and “Del Davis Treefarm”; he’s in his element here.
But
Tales of the Punchbowl has one very glaring flaw, a flaw that cripples an otherwise stellar offering: its songwriting. It’s just not that good. Well, the first part actually is. The first handful of songs is actually very well composed. The seven-minute spread of “Professor Nutbutter’s House of Treats” is a glorious entry for all three members, with each one rampaging through the rhythms and melodies with unrelenting virtuosity. “Mrs. Blaileen” and the radio hit “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” follow the style of
Sailing the Seas of Cheese, with hooky choruses and top-tier musicianship out the eyeballs. They’re excellent recordings, followed up by the hauntingly subdued “Southbound Pachyderm”, a track that builds from a low bass-driven volume to a chaotic mix of LaLonde’s incredible solos and Claypool’s vocal effects layered on top. But after the bizarre, pig-snorting interlude of “Space Farm”, the song quality becomes
too loose. The latter half of
Tales From the Punchbowl is cluttered with tracks that sound more like incomplete jams than real songs. Sure, you’re hearing a ton of top-class musicianship, but the complete lack of focus destroys the individual identities of these tracks, leaving nothing that you’ll remember.
Sailing the Seas of Cheese and
Pork Soda, for all of their weirdness, still had songs that had complete identities.
Tales From the Punchbowl doesn’t sound like it has any real guidelines to follow (in the second half, at least). It falters in giving the songs their own time to shine, causing the second half of the album to blend together into a messy fog.
It’s a shame that
Tales From the Punchbowl falters so much in its second half, because the opening four or so tracks are some of the best stuff Primus has ever released. The virtuosity and groove in songs like “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” come from the same superb skillset that made
Sailing the Seas of Cheese such an achievement for the band. The musicianship on
Tales From the Punchbowl is a powerful high for Primus as a whole, with some of the most technical pieces that the band has ever released. But musicianship alone can’t carry Primus through the mucky mire that
Tales From the Punchbowl delivers during its latter half. The songs (and I say that generously) just sound incomplete, sticking to some wonky grooves that don’t evolve into fully realized Primus tracks. With all that in mind,
Tales From the Punchbowl still has appeal. It’s a gem of musicianship for the band and the songs that do hit home hit it hard. But it pales in comparison to the masterwork of
Sailing the Seas of Cheese or even the twisted hypnosis of
Pork Soda. It might be a must-have for dedicated Primus fans, but any newcomer is best to try some of their earlier works instead of the dizzying whirlpool of
Tales From the Punchbowl.
