Primus - Suck on This

I would like to preface this blog by first stating that this band is one of the most noisy bands I’ve listened to in a while. When I was listening to their music, I was a little tired and sleepy because it was early in the morning. When the notes of their first song blared across the stereo, I was instantly shocked into submission. It was a jolt of pure energy that ricocheted throughout my entire body. Primus has taken the influence from all sorts of noisy genres, including metal and punk, but they have distinctly carved out their own sound. I don’t necessarily enjoy all of their sounds, but they made it their own in a time where this was widely successful and economically viable. They also laid the groundwork for other alternative metal bands to spawn later on in musical history.

Primus also only has THREE players! When I learned this fact, I was truly astounded because this band is able to fill up so much space with their individual songs. While some may classify this as simply noise, they each take on a huge responsibility in driving their songs forward. This is heavily dependent on each players’ instrumental ability, which none of these three superstars are lacking in. Like I said before, their songs are not my favorite and I would probably not listen to more than three of their songs at one time, but there is no arguing that they are very strong instrumentalists. This band simply murders my eardrums and stings them. I tended to get used to it and appreciate their playing but I feel that it would be hard to acknowledge this if I was listening to it by myself because it is not easy listening type of music.

The vocals in this album are nothing to speak of. They are rather flat and lack diversity. Although this is probably because the bassist is also the singer, I would have appreciated a stronger vocalist. Luckily for Primus, their music heavily relies on the countermelodies and instrumental portions of the songs. Their type of loud music is the kind that people don’t listen to for its lyrics. Every moment of this live album blares incessantly but with deeper listening, it can be broken down and greatly appreciated. The main point of astonishment (for me at least) was that the bassist was so strong AND was able to carry on at least a decent vocalist part. Les Claypool is probably one of the stronger bassists that I’ve listened to thus far. He carries countermelodies and a bass line that are literally insane. I don’t even know how his fingers can move with such ease over the strings that carry on the heart of their songs. Not only can he maintain an interesting strum on the bass, but he also can sing a melody that is to a completely different time (at least it seems). Overlaid on this strong bass sound is a wild and crazed guitar slays along with sick beats. The craziness of the pure rock sounds emitted by Primus makes it appealing if you want your brains exploded.

While our current music culture is not dominated by substance either, for some reason the music of Primus seems so foreign to me because it seems to have lack of organization. This is fresh and different than other music preceding it and following it that is dominated by catchy choruses and tunes but for some reason I can’t bring myself to truly appreciate the art in its original form. I keep trying to make myself like this music, but it seems impossible. In brief periods of time, I can stomach the loudness of it all in order to be totally rocked away by a wild guitar slay here and there, but overall, it is very hard to listen to. See what you think, though, and check out some of their hits off of this album.  Unless you’re a bassist or guitarist for your occupation, you’ll probably agree with my proposition that this is rather noisy and just plain loud. Their music videos are also rather strange.