Records: Mudhoney's Tomorrow Hit Today

By Margaret Rimsky

Mudhoney came into being for our generation when the Singles soundtrack and the mass grunge movement hit the streets and became instantly cool. But Mudhoney existed before flannel was a prerequisite, and on Tomorrow Hit Today, they show that it can survive outside the flannel age.

Tomorrow Hit Today picks up where 1995's My Brother the Cow left off. The new album rekindles the freshness of Mudhoney's early sub-pop sound, but the band tempers its old-school ironic fury with a new maturity. Tomorrow Hit Today is Mudhoney's tightest album yet, but this tightness doesn't undermine the band's grunge identity.

Mudhoney is very clearly the product of 1977-style Neil Young rock 'n' roll: heavy drums, noisy guitars, caustic vocals. This album doesn't mess with that sound, it simply cleans it up. The lyrics are better than Mudhoney's usual pubescent-boy liner notes. Mark Arm is sassy and playful when he croons, "You got me feeling like a second cousin twice removed," on "Real Low Vibe"; he's disenchanted and bluesy when he drones out "Try to Be Kind."

On Mudhoney's most coherent, consistent album yet, standout songs are hard to come by. But not all the songs sound the same. Tomorrow Hit Today fluctuates between many stylistic poles. "Ghost" sounds like early punk; others, like "Try to Be Kind," flirt with the folk-cult sound of the Allman Brothers. Still, the album presents itself as an homage to time past rather than a stab at rebirth. Mudhoney is trying to prove that grunge is not dead, but the audience is gone. Only the diehards are left in Seattle, which, like Haight-Ashbury, has become a vestige of the past. Mudhoney may have perfected grunge, but Tomorrow Hit Today falls on the deaf ears of a generation divided. (Reprise)

Back to A&E...