As anyone—or at least anyone over the age of 30—will tell you, the world is moving way too fast. Five weeks ago might as well be five years ago in today’s news cycle. Our social feeds are loaded with “want to feel old?” listicles of stuff that really isn’t that old. The avalanche of music now available at our fingertips—with our virtual listening piles growing exponentially by the second—can feel overwhelming. But then you remember that Mudhoney are still around, doing what Mudhoney have always done: laying down a fuzz-punk sludge that’s murky and quicksand-thick enough to stop time itself. And suddenly it’s as if order in the universe has been restored. Because in a world where everything is constantly changing, Mudhoney’s decision to endure and staunch refusal to evolve feel less like a case of comfort-zoned arrested development than a valorous act of defiance.
For a band that’s always trudged forward at its own unassuming pace—having survived peak grunge, the Judgment Night soundtrack, the ’90s alt-rock bust, cameos in Chris Farley flicks, the departure of original bassist/unofficial band mascot Matt Lukin, and the near-collapse of the music industry—2018 marks a rare moment of reflection. Mudhoney turn 30 this year, and they’re throwing themselves a party in the form of LiE, their first proper, widely available live album, featuring recordings culled from their 2016 European tour. Its purpose is seemingly two-fold: LiE functions as both career overview (albeit a highly selective one), and a testament to this veteran band’s undiminished snotty insolence.
Anyone who’s seen Mudhoney on recent tours knows the band can still bring it, and then some. After years of having his snarling voice compared to Iggy Pop, frontman Mark Arm has taken to acting more like him, too, by relinquishing his guitar for long stretches of the show, and becoming one of the few men of his vintage who can still credibly command a mosh pit. But LiE is ultimately less a vicarious recreation of the Mudhoney live experience than an oddly procedural vacation-slide-show summary of one. The individual performances are gut-punching in their potency—“Get Into Yours” in particular exudes a raw-nerved, I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-1989! quality, while the roiling “Poisoned Water‚” is a worthy ambassador for 1998’s way-underrated Tomorrow Hit Today. But the discrete presentation of the songs sucks them dry, with the abrupt fade-outs robbing the album of any in-the-room ambience and natural momentum.
Given that even the most produced Mudhoney album comes slathered with in-the-red scuzz, what you get here are essentially soundboard-quality live versions of songs that, with a couple of slightly jammed-out exceptions (like an extra-droned “The Final Course”), don’t differ all that much from their studio-recorded incarnations. The sequencing and song selection also leave something to be desired: the sullen Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge dirge “Broken Hands” (the closest this band has ever gotten to a power ballad) feels like a bummer note to go out on, especially when Mudhoney routinely end their nights with a blitzkrieged rip through Black Flag’s “Fix Me.” (As a consolation prize, we get their black ‘n’ blue cover of Roxy Music’s glam stomper “Editions of You” one track earlier, with Steve Turner’s queasily contorted leads ably subbing in for Brian Eno’s sci-fi synth squeals.)
Naturally, LiE peaks in those rare moments when successive tracks from a given show are presented seamlessly—like when the mid-tempo Vanishing Point strut “What to Do With the Neutral” tees up the survivalist rallying cry “I’m Now,” from 2008’s The Lucky Ones. Not only is the latter track the best song Mudhoney has put out this century, it speaks to the band’s current state of mind as soundly as “Touch Me, I’m Sick” did back in 1988. True to this band’s contrarian, anti-sentimental nature, that signature, grunge-spawning single is nowhere to be found here—and neither are any of the other classic tracks from their iconic debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff or the associated early seven-inches, even though they still comprise a healthy portion of the band’s current set lists. Mudhoney may be celebrating a milestone birthday this year, but LiE would prefer to highlight the band’s agelessness, by showing how more recent rave-ups like “I Like It Small” can hold their own alongside stage-diving standards like “Suck You Dry.” And if nothing else, the album proves that, for Mudhoney, there’s still no time like the present to get ripped apart.
