BUTTHOLE SURFERS
After The Astronaut (Sunset Blvd)
Playing it safe was never Butthole Surfers’ modus operandi, if a band as notoriously chaotic as them could ever be described as having such a thing. The chapter dedicated to the Texans in Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azerrad’s brilliant history of the 1980s US punk underground, is a jaw-dropping chronicle of noise, sex, violence, drugs and depravity.
So more fool Capitol for expecting a carbon copy of the band’s 1996 album Electriclarryland, and being sufficiently dismayed by the subsequent LP to pull the plug on the deal. That record, released in bastardised form by Hollywood Records in 2001 as Weird Revolution, is only now seeing the light of day as originally intended.
In truth, After The Astronaut does share much of its DNA with its predecessor, with tracks such as Intelligent Guy aping the shambling stoned beats and literally phoned-in semi-rapped vocals of MTV breakthrough single Pepper. But their freak flag still flies high on Imbuya (a curious collision of Bauhaus and drum’n’bass), Turkey And Dressing (cartoonish electro-hardcore) and bizarre concoctions like I Don’t Have A Problem and Junkie Jenny In Gaytown. They may have become less feral, but they were never truly tamed.
words BEN WOOLHEAD
