Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun (Album Review)

 

Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun

(1985)

My copy: 2011 reissue by MVD Audio.

By 1985, the Meat Puppets were already long tired of using their skills to produce hardcore music. Prior to Up On The Sun the band had already toyed with elements of bluegrass and country, mashing genres together at blistering tempos to create a confounding new style. Up On The Sun continues the multi-faceted journey that began with 1984’s Meat Puppets II. 

The title track kicks off the record with twinkled psychedelic scales and palm-muted guitar accents. The bass pops and clicks in between clever grooves. The vocals are dry but well harmonized and the song has a sense of patience in spite of how layered it is. “Up On The Sun” still has slight punk influences in its choruses which are jagged albeit with clean guitars. “Maiden’s Milk” is the less interesting of the instrumental tracks, with childish whistling that plays into the goofy mask worn by the Meat Puppets. 

“Away” takes choppy guitar from 70’s jam bands and adds stoned vocals and a far out solo while “Animal Kingdom” features a tense intro that delves further into the psychedelic tones of the 60s. “Hot Pink” focuses more on rhythm than lead guitar and is the sunniest song. “Swimming Ground” is an infectious singalong thanks to the layered vocal harmonies and features insanely fun flanged guitar riffs that are later  flooded by delay effects. 

“Buckethead” sounds as though it could play at a deranged carnival as a dark bass line emerges from under silly guitar leads and humorous lyrics. “Too Real” almost feels like a betrayal of the mission statement with powerful classic-rock riffage and distortion. The Puppets then unleash a frenzied tangle of hammer-ons on “Enchanted Pork Fist” which is the most prog oriented song on the album as it bounces between tempos and breakdowns. Country influence pops up on the twangy “Seal Whales,” but there are deeper middle-eastern elements to the scales on this pleasant instrumental. “Two Rivers” begins with dissonance and urgency before harmonics dissolve the song into a reflective vocal passage. 

“Creator” is an off-kilter yet triumphant closing jam with goofy but fun vocals that philosophize about God. Up On The Sun is a strange record that crams psych, prog and jam music into tight, rapid-fire punk structures. The Meat Puppets manage to keep all the good elements of prog and psych (layers and effects) while shedding the length and moodiness in favor of cohesion and brevity. The main flaw is that the record sort of blends together like most punk records do, and it feels like there is fat to be trimmed. 

Up On The Sun is a ton of fun, made by tricksters who get a rise out of messing with their audience. Though a lot of the ideas and lyrics on this album are goofy, the Meat Puppets are a lot smarter than they let on.