Butthole Surfers: Weird Revolution

Butthole Surfers' uneasy foray into mainstream radio and major labels was bound to end badly. Slickening its caustic sound produced hits both minor ("Who Was In My Room Last Night," from 1993's Independent Worm Saloon) and major ("Pepper," from 1996's Electriclarryland), but label politics have driven the band into a death spiral. On both those singles, Butthole Surfers experimented with genres and trends that weren't always a good fit—the former was an overdriven piece of Ministry-esque industrial rock, while the latter was a rambling bit of free association that met at the midpoint between Beck and The Nails' "88 Lines About 44 Women"—and the result was momentary commercial success that further alienated fans of the venerable group's caustic noise. Then, Butthole Surfers' 1998 album After The Astronaut was pulled from release at the last minute; over the ensuing three years, the group has wrangled to get it released, as more trends and genres have come and gone. Reworked and re-recorded, but sharing two-thirds of its tracks with the unreleased Astronaut, Weird Revolution picks up where Electriclarryland, and specifically "Pepper," left off—which is to say, the mid-'90s. Not aided by the band's lengthy bout with pop-cultural invisibility, Weird Revolution sounds dated and quaint, both in its "Pepper" rehashes ("Dracula From Houston," "The Shame Of Life") and in its halfhearted attempts at caustic shock ("Shit Like That") and misfit mission statements ("The Weird Revolution"). Late in the album, a few atmospheric tracks ("The Last Astronaut," "Yentel") benefit from rare subtlety, but that could just be the pleasant byproduct of a legendary band momentarily forgetting to strain.