Supposedly, the holy grail of grunge, along with the lone Temple of the Dog disc, and whatever assorted pieces of plastic one can scrounge up from Skinyard and Green River....except for one thing – they forgot to make it not sound as annoying as possible. Say what you want about Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and even those dastardly, not-actually-from-Seattle Stone Temple Pilots (who arguably, put out more ear-friendly material than all of those bands combined), but at least those guys were smart enough to put a slick, professional sheen on their tricks to hide a glaring lack of originality, while Mudhoney came out of the gates copping the solipsistic vibes of The Stooges, MC5, and Flipper. The former road was a path to both critical and commercial success, while the latter road only got Mudhoney a lot of good reviews and respectability, at least early in their career. Revisiting this album has not changed my opinion on it – yes, on the one hand, it really may be the literal definition of grunge, but on the other hand, there’s something not quite natural about this supposedly unholy racket. It screams, shouts, thrashes around, all fuzzed and distorted as the title suggests, but at the end of the day, it's hard to get acquainted with.
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