Review Summary: "You're the guy from the hamburger train, right?"
On April 20, 1993, Primus released their third album,
Pork Soda, on Interscope Records. Riding off the MTV success of previous singles “John the Fisherman”, “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver”, and “Tommy the Cat”, the album managed to reach #7 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum. Everything about that sentence is utterly confounding from a modern viewpoint. The thought that a band as indescribable as Primus landed a record deal with one of the most prestigious and omnipresent music labels in existence, and somehow managed to sell as well as they did, is unfathomable today. Yet despite sounding like nothing else before it or since,
Pork Soda remains as a landmark release of the 90s, and cements Primus as an iconically weird/weirdly iconic band.
The early 90s was the Wild West when it comes to heavy music. It’s a damn shame the alternative metal scene gets overlooked when talking about both the arc of 90s music and the history of heavy metal. If I’m gonna do anything with my Sputnikmusic account, it’s gonna be chronicling all the weird outgrowths of the early 90s metal scene, because frankly I’m sick of seeing 90s heavy music history being boiled down to “Kurt Cobain killed hair metal and thrash, and then suddenly Limp Bizkit happened”. Alternative metal represents the missing link between grunge and nu metal, with bands like Faith No More, Helmet, Rollins Band, and Tool taking whatever genres they were listening to at the time and supplying them with groovy and aggressive riffs. Many of these bands had gotten a huge boost from appearances on Beavis & Butthead and Headbanger’s Ball. It really shows how much clout MTV had on the music scene back then, that they could take a band with little public recognition and get them to gold status just by airing their music videos a couple times. What they were willing to air is just as shocking. Go back and look though the Headbanger’s Ball episode database, you’ll be surprised that there was a time when alt-rock staples like Jane’s Addiction, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden were placed next to extreme metal legends like Death, Carcass, and Morbid Angel.
One of the most successful bands out of this era was Primus. While they were a part of the alternative metal genre, it wasn’t necessarily metal. It wasn’t really anything to be completely honest. Primus’ sound basically amounts to a divergent collection of experimental rock acts of the 70s and 80s spliced with Rush riffs. If you ask anyone what genre Primus is, they’ll just say it’s Primus. It was goofy and eccentric enough to appear on alt-rock stations, yet virtuosic and dissonant enough for moshpits. The perfect sensibilities for an alt-metal classic.
Pork Soda embodies this ethos effortlessly. While one could argue that
Frizzle Fry and
Sailing the Seas of Cheese are better and more consistent albums, neither were as dark and atmospheric as
Pork Soda. While there wasn’t a definitive sound to early 90s metal so to speak, there were some characteristics that bands across the metal spectrum shared. Most metal bands of the era featured atonal, skronk heavy guitar work and a dense and powerful rhythm section, with both parties having an equal presence in songwriting. Primus, as a band, takes that sound and injects it with steroids. But on
Pork Soda, they take that sound and contort it to new levels of queasiness.
The album kicks off with “My Name is Mud”, one of their biggest hits and sets the tone of the album perfectly. It’s a disgusting sounding track that takes zany songwriting of previous releases and accompanies them with lyrics about a hillbilly murdering a man with a bat. While the album still retains the zaniness that Primus are known for, songs like “Welcome to This World” and “DMV” feel stricken with nervousness and tension. There’s an ominousness to
Pork Soda that is just so intoxicating. A feeling of dread permeates through most of the songs, like that something has gone horribly wrong but you have no idea what. It reminds me of Faith No More’s masterpiece
Angel Dust, in that you never know whether or not to laugh or cry at what you’re listening to.
Of course, it goes without saying that Primus are masters of their instruments. Les Claypool is a bass god. End of story. He set a new standard for what you could accomplish with the bass guitar, one whose techniques still defy bassists to this day. If there is any discussion about the bass, Les Claypool will be brought up. But while Les’ playing more or less define Primus, guitarist Larry LaLonde and drummer Tim Alexander are invaluable musicians worthy of similar regard. Tim stands as one of the most tasteful drummers in all of rock, one who knows exactly when to give space and when to pummel. The dude has some of the subtlest use of double bass I’ve ever heard, and his use of octobans are stunning. Meanwhile, Ler’s cacophonous yet melodic playing is the glue that holds the band together. He gives Les and Tim a setting to go to town on, and my god does he gives them a setting. His leads on this album are what make this album so damn menacing, hearing him unleash shrieking solos on songs like “Mr. Krinkle” is skin-crawlingly divine. Together, they wield an utterly massive and heavily textured sound that bands with four or more members could only dream of. Songs like “The Pressman” and “Nature Boy” sound like they were composed with symphonies in mind, the fact that it’s just three people is impressive as hell.
Two of the darkest moments of the album are also its most human. “Wounded Knee” is a gorgeous little drum solo dedicated to the 300 Lakota tribe members who were murdered by US colonizers in the Wounded Knee Massacre. “Bob” was written about an actual person in Les’ life who tragically committed suicide, whose death affected him so much he’s “never been back to the apartment where he lived”. These songs add gravity to the album’s stomach-churning ambience, and showcases one of the few times Primus ever had a serious moment.
Despite its dark undertones,
Pork Soda managed to get certified platinum, with ‘My Named in Mud” getting extensive play on radio stations and MTV. I’m still confounded by this. Primus has stood the test of time by being weird in ways no one else could ever replicate. Yet it reflects a time where music this bizarre could ever be profitable. A time where experimental music fans and metalheads joined together to celebrate alienating music on such a wide scale. I appreciate
Pork Soda, and Primus as a whole, on a level that very few albums could ever achieve, it made me thankful that it existed at all. Music is a much stranger world because of it.
P.S.: If you collect records, I 100% recommend getting this album on vinyl. It is by far one of the best sounding records in my collection.
