Mudhoney - My Brother The Cow
Mudhoney had been easing away from the grunge sound they helped to pioneer after 1991, when it exploded into the mainstream. From Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, to Piece Of Cake, and finally with Five Dollar Bob's Mock Cooter Stew, each sounded less like grunge then the last. After the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, as grunge started to fizzle out and the bands associated with it stopped playing it (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc.), Mudhoney actually took a step back toward it.
My Brother The Cow, Mudhoney's second album for Reprise Records is a fantastic blend of grinding, angsty grunge, and the lighthearted, irreverent punky material the band had been producing around that time. The band sounds much tighter then they had on almost any release they had up to this point, thanks to years of touring and playing together.
Some of My Brother The Cow's finest moments are when singer Mark Arm is making snarky, sarcastic comments about the world around him. "Into Yer Shtik" lambasts many of the musicians on the scene at the time (Layne Staley's drug addiction is mocked, and another musician is invited to "blow your brains out too!"). "Fearless Doctor Killers" is a punky little ditty raging out against anti-choice protesters that were attacking doctors who performed abortions ("I'm all for life, until that bastard's born!").
Mudhoney would produce one more album for Reprise before returning to their indie label home (Sub Pop), but with My Brother The Cow, they had reached their peak on the mainstream label.
My Brother The Cow - 8 out of 10.
You can check out the official music video for "Generation Spokesmodel" over here and here's a pretty raw recording of a recent performance of "Fearless Doctor Killers".
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