Album review: Mudhoney's "Digital Garbage"

MUDHONEY

*Digital Garbage*

(Subpop)

Mudhoney is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore. No political or social topic is off limits on the 10th studio album from these grunge legends. Singer Mark Arm seems to take aim at Trump supporters and other vapid types on “Hey Neanderfuck” and “Paranoid Core,” but the most scathing criticism is left for hypocritical Christians (“21st Century Pharisees”), social media whores (“Kill Yourself Live”) and mass murderers: Arm pleads over and over again on “Please Mr. Gunman”: “Before you kill us dead forever...consider our afterlife / We’d rather die in church.” Even climate-change deniers get called out on “Prosperity Gospel”--kicking off with the declaration “Fuck the planet, screw your children / Get rich, you win”--and “Next Mass Extinction,” with a harmonica lead-in to these cynical thoughts: “Don’t worry your head / the earth will see peace / the world won’t end cause we will be / replaced by nothing in the next mass extinction.” Musically, the band’s superfuzz/bigmuff sound reverbs as good as ever, with opener track “Nerve Attack” sounding like a song from 1991’s “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.” “Kill Yourself Live,” a sardonic command to those addicted to social media “likes,” features the most satisfying instrumental progression, thanks in part to an organ riff backbone among the guitar chord progressions and angsty themes.

8/10

-Jason Scales
This review is published in the December 2018 issue of Illinois Entertainer magazine. Click link and navigate PDF to page 28.