Meat Puppets II

The early-1980s post-punk musings of the Meat Puppets give new meaning to the term "alternative country". Instead of adding a country flavour to traditional rock, or overdriving a honky-tonk sound, the group achieved a genuine marriage of avant-rock weirdness and earthy Americana on this, their defining release. The frenzied two-step of "Magic Toy Missing" and "Lost" mates hoedown with electric freakout. The group's tripping-in-the-desert sense of neo-psychedelia is displayed at its apex on the twisted classic "Plateau" and the acid-drenched country-punk of "New Gods". Like Neil Young (a strong influence), the Meat Puppets were blessed with a totally natural sense of strangeness that allowed them to be both of the earth and beyond it simultaneously. This reissue's generous helping of bonus tracks helps sweeten an already immensely appealing pot.

Spin (5/01, p.110)
- Ranked #28 in Spin's "50 Most Essential Punk Records".

Spin (4/99, p.165)
- "...the Meat Puppets conjured a distinct, hybrid style- dubbed country punk - and througout the 80's made some of the decade's most free-thinking, vital music....on MEAT PUPPETS II those influences blend with desert still and sunset air to form the record that Kurt Cobain said made him love music..."

The Wire (5/99, p.63)
- "...they tilted towards Country music played in the unnatural glow of a desert nuclear test..."

Entertainment Weekly (3/26/99, p.87)
- "...Part ZZ Top on peyote, part Grateful Dead on steroids, the guitar-driven trio's eccentric genius emerges on [this] souped-up rerelease..." - Rating: A-

NME (4/17/99, p.37)
- 8 out of 10 - "...A beautiful record, almost religious in its intense, sincere belief in music for its own sake."