Mudhoney didn't invent grunge, but they were one of the first bands to truly define the style, and thanks to the bizarro-world logic that has defined their career, they seemed to loose interest in the stuff once you could actually make serious money playing it, ensuring that they wouldn't have to deal with the mainstream adulation that made followers like
Nirvana,
Pearl Jam, and
Soundgarden into multi-platinum cash cows. By 1995, grunge's brief fling on the charts was pretty much over … just in time for
Mudhoney to decide they liked the stuff again, and make the finest album of their career,
My Brother the Cow. On
My Brother the Cow,
Mudhoney finally found a noisy middle ground where their fondness for
Billy Childish and
Blue Cheer could peacefully coexist, and the songs are less sludgy and more driving than their early classics, but with enough cheap stomp-box thunder to remind you of who's playing. A few years on the road had made
Mudhoney a much stronger and tighter band, able to fully grasp the hard rock guitar figures they dearly loved to mock, but without falling into big rock pomp. And they came up with a dozen tunes that gave them plenty of room to sneer brilliantly (one of their greatest gifts), especially "Generation Spokesmodel," "F.D.K. (Fearless Doctor Killers)," and "Into Yer Shtik" (in which some nameless rock scene figure is advised to "blow your brains out too"). And as icing on the cake, the CD has the greatest hidden bonus track of all time. For better or worse,
Mudhoney always played their game their own way, and they never played it better than on
My Brother the Cow. ~ Mark Deming