★★★★★
Something that gets said about the Meat Puppets is that the first three albums are amazing (which they certainly are) and the rest not worth bothering with. Browsing songs from the later records that I've yet to buy, I've found a lot of them to be terribly good, even if the records don't stand up well next to II and Up on the Sun. But then, few records seem to...
- www.punknews.org
2014-02-20
★★★★★
Meat PuppetsRat Farm (Megaforce) The Meat Puppets are now older than the dirt they kick up. With their eponymous debut three decades aged, the threesome's 14th studio trek reconfirms their unbelievable comeback. After last decade's drug drama by bassist Cris Kirkwood, older brother Curt continues penning some of the strongest, sweetest, and compellingly twisted material of his already storied songwriting career...
- www.austinchronicle.com
2013-05-18
★★★★★
Here's what I asked myself after my initial trip through Rat Farm, the new album from the Meat Puppets: What would I think of this record if it hadn't come from the same band that released Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun? That's the thing about reviewing the Puppets' new work. Their Reagan-era masterpieces cast such a huge shadow that it's hard to listen to new stuff without making comparisons. I don't think it's just me. Go look at published reviews of recent Puppets releases...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-05-02
★★★★★
Meat Puppets had their 15 minutes when they joined Nirvana on stage for the taping of MTV Unplugged, and when they released Too High To Die just a couple months later, it became their only gold record, and Backwater became their only single to chart in the Hot 100. But Meat Puppets always deserved better than that...
- www.noripcord.com
2013-04-30
★★★★★
Their alt.rock stock rose higher than the sun following Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York endorsement, but Arizona's Meat Puppets subsequently paid a high price for their mid-90s celebrity status. Bassist Cris Kirkwood, especially, suffered an Icarus-like fall from grace, losing both wife and liberty during a decade spent fighting heroin addiction...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-26
★★★★★
From the spluttering hardcore of their first LP through wildcard bassist Cris Kirkwood's lost years, Meat Puppets seemed to chase chaos, musical and otherwise. So when Cris, fresh off a few particularly rocky years, rejoined brother Curt Kirkwood in 2006, once-bitten fans didn't know what to expect, save a certain amount of mania...
- pitchfork.com
2013-04-20
★★★★★
Megaforce "Hallelujah, rotten to the core," Curt and Cris Kirkwood harmonize on the album's opening title track, a rumbling country punk anthem that marks a return to the group's classic SST days of raw angst and defiance burning in the desert sun. But there's an important difference for the band this go-round: the addition of Curt's son Elmo on second guitar. His presence opens the door for more sonic exploration...
- www.relix.com
2013-04-18
★★★★★
Goto commentsLeave a commentShare Free-range and Carefree After the more production-heavy graces of Lollipop, the Meat Puppets' brothers Kirkwood reel it in a bit for their fourteenth studio effort, Rat Farm, an often rustic folk-country set completely assured in its off-beat humor and subdued delivery...
- www.mxdwn.com
2013-04-18
★★★★★
Despite a 30-plus year career and 14 studio albums, many have relegated the Meat Puppets to a footnote attached to the Grunge entry in the music encyclopedia, something amounting to "those guys that played with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged." Over that time, though, brothers Curt and Chris Kirkwood (and on some recent tours, Curt's son Elmo) have continued to develop a western-fried blend of genres, well past so many of their scene counterparts...
- consequenceofsound.net
2013-04-18