They Suck

Some interesting music releases today. I listened to Dua Saleh’s new album Of Earth & Waves, which I thought was excellent. I know Dua Saleh from their role on “Sex Education” as Cal Bowman, one of my favorite characters on one of my favorite shows in recent years. New singles are out from Tove Lo (“I’m Your Girl, Right?”), Kesha (“Origami”), and freaking Lords of Acid (“Dream Boy” — and it’s actually great!). The most exciting news is that Tove Lo is recording a song with Stromae, but it’s not released yet. I also discovered some new mixes of songs from Sigue Sigue Sputnik, of all bands, even though it came out in March! I’ll write about any/all of these as I have time, but today’s spotlight most definitely goes to the new EP from Primus, A Handful of Nuggs. 

I may have mentioned that I’ve been to over 100 concerts in the last five years. No one, and I mean no one, has surprised me more than Primus, who I saw play together with A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. To my great surprise, Primus played the other two bands into the ground. Les Claypool is, without a doubt, the best bassist I’ve ever seen play. But the entire set was incredible from start to finish. Really special stuff, that raw talent that you can’t learn.

Seeing Primus at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley was special too. I came of age in the Berkeley Student Cooperative, three blocks from the Greek, and the former host of Barrington Hall, a legendary housing co-op shut down in 1990 for being a den of iniquity. Twenty years later, my co-op was shut down for the same reason. Primus was reportedly the house band at Barrington Hall, and somewhat notoriously, their 1995 album Tales from the Punchbowl is named after a real and notorious party at Barrington called “Wine Dinner” when giant punchbowls were laced with LSD. 

Anyway: Primus released a 4-track EP today called A Handful of Nuggs. It is fabulous. A band that formed over 40 years ago is still releasing some of their best new music—an impressive feat. This one gets a track-by-track review.

“The Ol’ Grizz”

A solo song by Primus, it features the absolute madhouse of a bass line as only available in music involving Les Claypool. With the bass line, the song is unmistakably Primus, and also has the hallmark gobbledygook lyrics, but it’s surprisingly… funky? I wouldn’t play this in a club, to be certain, and it’s weird as shit, but it overall makes for a pretty compelling song. It’s the funnest uncles on earth playing around a campfire.

“Holy Diver” featuring Puddles Pity Party

This is it, y’all. “This is what, Alexis?” This is the new standard version of this song. Call me sacrilegious, but I listened to this new cover alongside the Dio original and the Killswitch Engage cover (which I’d never heard before!) and this one pretty clearly comes out on top. 

Let me explain. First, the Killswitch Engage cover: I really liked the singer’s voice on this song. Really strong vocal performance, although I didn’t care for the instrumentation that much. Second, the legendary 1983 original: starts out super slow (literally 1:20 of just weird experimental music at the beginning before the melody even begins). I don’t love Ronnie James Dio’s voice; he did this thing that was very popular among male rock singers in the 1980s where he sneered his high notes (Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott comes to mind) that drives me crazy. The track is legendary for a reason—it was unlike anything ever released up to that point—and the metal guitar instrumental part is also legendary. But just because the song was legendary doesn’t mean it can’t be topped.

I think it just was. Puddles Pity Party has one of the best bass singing voices of anyone actively performing. His vocal part is actually done quite similarly to Ronnie James Dio’s original, but his voice is just better overall. The instrumentation, too, is relatively similar to the original, making this a fairly faithful cover, but between Puddles’s voice and Primus’s unique take on rock music, and replacing the lead guitar with the bass, while maintaining the lyrics, structure, and instrumentation, and cutting out that lame-o introduction, I think we have the winner.

“Little Lord Fentanyl” featuring Puscifer

Puscifer is one of the side-projects of Maynard James Keenan, also the singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle (and oenophile). He sings guest on this song. Definitely not my favorite song on the album lyrically, as it feels like it kind of makes light of the fentanyl epidemic that is ravaging this country, to make a silly pun about “Little Lord Fauntleroy” that ultimately is meaningless. Maynard has clearly established excellent rapport with Primus and they are likely friends in addition to tour partners and collaborators, but this just isn’t my favorite song. The bass line, however, is spectacular. Really, really great. Still makes it worth listening to. 

“Duchess (And the Proverbial Mind Spread)” - Live from the Mann Music Center, Philadelphia, PA

A second funky song on this short EP, this is a live version of a song from their 1997 Brown Album. Don’t even bother listening to the lyrics on this one, just listen to the math-rock-like groove on this song. Instrumentally, this is one of their most impressive songs.

Overall, in four short tracks spanning only 18 minutes, this EP packs quite a punch. Get obsessed.

P.S. I’m going to post links to the new albums and songs that came out today below, plus that killer Sigue Sigue Sputnik EP.