Primus' "Green Naugahyde" A Disappointing Return

Two decades past their 90's era heyday, their magnum opus Sailing The Seas of Cheese, and 11 solid years past a full length CD of new material (though they released an EP of new material in 2003 bundled with a DVD retrospective of music videos), Primus returns with the unfortunately disappointing Green Naugahyde.

Naugahyde, aside from just being a rushed and lazy effort, is extremely, and maybe some would say expectedly, Claypool self-indulgent.  Granted, just about everything the band released after 1993's Pork Soda became increasingly more about Les Claypool than about a three-piece ensemble who are all exceptionally talented musicians.  When the band took hiatus in 1999, so Claypool could busy himself manufacturing exhaustingly redundant prog rock jam bands, with Pee Wee Herman meets Weird Al Yankovic caliber whacky (and wincingly lame) names, like The Fearless Flying Frog Brigade and Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains - Primus fans slowly began to come to terms with the fact that Primus was not likely to ever come back.

To our shock - and now dismay - they did come back, but Green Naugahyde is no return to form, no positive progression of a band proper, and certainly not a collection worth an eleven year wait.  This is an album that - if it must exist - belongs in Les Claypool's solo discography - and even then, there's not a single thing about it that makes it a necessity to the artist's resume. It's musical cannon fodder, at best. 

Primus was never a "singles" band, i.e. they didn't see the Top 40 often (if ever), though every album did contain at least two solid single-worthy songs to promote it.  Green Naugahyde does not have a "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver" on it, or a "My Name Is Mud"... or anything even remotely as catchy as "Tommy The Cat".  There are simply no tracks in this collection that would even come close to those standards.  We get recycled, ennui inducing shit here, like "Tragedy's a Comin'" - an anthem chorused jam session that sounds remarkably identical to "The Ballad of Bodacious" from 1999's Antipop - which was an equally crappy song, but with lyrics that at least sounded like they took some time to write.  We get songs here with adolescent titles like "Jilly's On Smack" and "Moron TV" - and yes, as you might have guessed, it's that boring old chestnut about how there's nothing good on TV and it's bad for ya to watch it.  Profound material. Really.  I will give some small credit to "Moron TV", however, as despite its lyrical content,  it's one of the few tracks on the album that does actually sound musically like a genuine Primus song.  Guitarist Larry LaLonde finally gets a little limelight on this track for his detailed and technical guitar work, and new/old drummer Jay Lane explores and experiments on his kit in very Tim Alexander-ish style.  Interestingly, Lane was actually part of the band in the days when Primus was just a local East San Francisco Bay act, only to quit to pursue other interests right before they broke into fame.  He was replaced by the illustrious Tim "Herb" Alexander, who stayed with the band through about 1996.

Among the cataclysm of disappointment that is Green Naugahyde, an extra irritant is Les Claypool's overuse of a distorted "liquid wah" effect pedal he seems to have obtained somewhere between 1997 and 1999; and hasn't stopped using since.  It rears its sonically tiring head on nearly every track on this album... just like it did on every track on every one of his solo albums.  It's not a bad effect to use in small doses, but it adds an artificial, synthesized sound to his bass playing that removes all the rawness, twang and fret-board clicking that was an early trademark in your standard issue, classic Primus fare.  About the only thing it's good for on this, is adding to the suffocating and claustrophobic, over compressed production of Green Naugahyde.  

If that weren't bad enough, the mix is further fucked as Claypool buries his vocals in a distortion effect that makes him sound like he's singing through a telephone with a bad connection.  LaLonde's guitar is practically mixed out of every song, appearing mostly thin and non-resonant, weaving between the bloated sound of the bass guitar.  Somewhere behind all that, you can just barely make out Jay Lane's percussion - though it sounds like he's been forced to hit his sticks against a wooden table, allowing only taps and clicks to represent what could possibly be some decent drumming.  

Green Naugahyde is released Tuesday, September 13th, and it will be interesting to see its reception - though I maintain I could pretty accurately foretell it.  It's a shame too, because Primus was at one time a completely peerless and unfathomably creative band.  In my teenage years, you couldn't tell me there was anything better than them, and you certainly couldn't convince me any of their albums from Frizzle Fry to Pork Soda were anything less than the greatest, most unique and totally flawless things ever recorded.  In these latter days, however, Primus seems to have lost their touch, lost a grip on doing what they used to do so well, or maybe just lost interest entirely.  

Suffice it to say that "Naugahyde" is an entirely appropriate noun used in the title of this release... as this is anything but the genuine article we once knew as Primus.