ANTIPOP

According to later interviews, Primus were not in a good place when making this album. They were fed up with each other (which is difficult to believe from such a jolly bunch) and felt directionless. And it's directionlessness and maybe even carelessness that comes across when listening to this.

After a brief intro (that's the intro of the last album track proper as well, wtf?), the opening track "Electric Uncle Sam" hits as decent alternative-funk-metal and it features Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello. And you know what, if you imagine Zack De La Rocha barking instead of Claypool, you'd be fooled to think you're listening RATM actully. Nothing wrong with that, except this is a Primus album. Morello is featured on two other tracks as well and they suffer from the same thing ("Power Mad" a little less so).

In addition to Morello, there are also other guest musicians and producers. The latter include Fred Durst and Stewart Copeland, but I don't know how much their contributions made difference to the final result. James Hetfield and Jim Martin play guitar on "Eclectic Electric". Hetfield rhythm chunk is recognizable but I can't tell what Martin does. Martina Topley-Bird sings backing vocals on a couple of tracks and Tom Waits is strongly featured on the closer "Coattails of a Dead Man". Except it's not really the closer, but after a minute or so of silence we get "The Heckler" that originally appeared on Primus' debut live album Suck On This.

So, if it all sounds a bit messy and aimless, that's exactly what it is. There are a couple of standout tracks, though. Hard- rocking "Lacquer Head" that hearkens back to Frizzle Fry era Primus, "Natural Joe" that has a laidback groove reminiscent of some Tales of the Bunchbowl tracks and "Ballad of Bodacious" that is not dissimilar to what they did on Brown album. The rest is just more or less uninteresting to me.

Had they included "The Heckler" as a proper album track and boldly ditched some weaker ones and counted less on the guests, this would've been a much stronger album. Now it stands, to me, as the band's weakest effort. Yet still worth hearing because of its highlights.