I used to be a big Meat Puppets fan and when I finally got the chanceto see them play live and interview them it was a blast. Curt Kirkwoodwas as hilarious, hallucinatory and obtuse an interviewee as his lyricsmight have suggested he could be and they effortlessly blew thecomparatively lame Soul Asylum right out the door. Nirvana should needeven less introduction. So here are Kirkwood and former Nirvana bassistin a new trio with a drummer from some band called Sublime who I'venever heard of and probably never will bother to. As you might expect,Eyes Adrift are much more like Meat Puppets than Nirvana, after all,Kirkwood was that band's main songwriter. He still splashes togetherdashes of punk rock, country and weird psychedelic acidfire guitarsolos in a way that shouldn't disappoint any old Meat Puppets fans. Infact, the new band seems to have revitalised him and set him lookingfor slightly new angles to throw his illusive songlight on. The albumstarts unobtrusively and builds inexorably. What would be the firstside seems to coast by nicely, but it seems they saved the best songsfor the second half. "Solid" is classic Kirkwood, a huge psyched outlament by a protagonist whose blood has frozen in his veins, perhaps aperverse metaphorical reflection on Meat Puppets and his bassistbrother's drug problems? "Telescope" should have lovers of cute melodictwists and hard chuggin' metal riffage alike grinning from ear to ear,as Kirkwood shows anyone who'll listen how he'll aim his potato gun atthe sun. By the time they run themselves a "Slow Race," where theobject is to lose, there are no fish left in the streams, they've alltaken to the air. Despite some subtle textures imparted by computerediting and recording, there aren't really any huge leaps from MeatPuppets music, but some small progression has been made out of thecreative cul de sac that band seemed to end up in latterly. My biggestsurprise was finding a copy of this CD for the price of half a pint ofbooze in a bargain bin, but the last track is also quite a curveball."Pasted" is an epic meandering voyage that stretches out well overfifteen minutes and glues a vaguely folk rock lyric about old St Paul,which might be sung by Novoselic, onto some of Kirkwood's most ecstaticsundrenched guitar noise ever. You can hear the entire album at the Eyes Adrift site where they also have two new songs up for grabs. The obvious is dead.Read More
