Corrosive grooves, minimalist noise, and surreal banjo interludes make this weird, and very very wonderful.

Hehehe.

This Primus's darkest album. It was quite a shocker to fans of the newly popular band after the release of the fun and out of control 'Sailing The Seas Of Cheese', but people still loved it, and so do I. Although I prefer SSoC I still love this album. Ler LaLonde, one of my favorite and in my opinion the most underrated guitarist of all time, gets a lot more riffs on this album, but it still doesn't get in the way of Les Claypool's bass genius. "Hamburger Train" is one of few songs over 8 minutes long that never gets boring. Also great are "My Name Is Mud", "Welcome To This World", "Bob" "DMV" "Nature Boy" "The Pressman", but all the songs (except Hail Santa, which when you think about it really can't be considered a song) are above average. If you unique, bass driven, alternative rock bands that stand out from the crowd this band and album is for you.

First, let me quote Jeff Bateman of Amazon.com when he says "Corrosive grooves, minimalist noise, and surreal banjo interludes make this weird and not very wonderful." Remove the word not, and I agree completely. In no way candy coated or even really explained, through the use of glib, off the cuff pseudo-folk tales, Pork Soda contains some simple lessons that you dont learn in school. Feeding off of the insanity and strange coping mechanism we are all familiar with to some degree, the moods that this album reeks of are ones people, for better or worse, tend to leave alone. This album fearlessly dives right into the dark side of the collective American psyche (as do most original Primus works) and addresses it with a twinge of insane glee that leaves one with a loss of equilibrium and one step closer to the underworld of America that is its greatest source of art. But the album isnt even all that, for example The Ol' Diamondback Sturgeon. The feel of this song is so transcendentally stoned that I bet the great Les himself had difficulty getting it all out. Fortunately for the listener, he just trusts his instincts and lets 'er rip. The song is all Primus, melding the sounds of Appalachia and India to tell so well the story of catching a fish, from the fishes perspective. The instrumental percussion song Wounded Knee, more of a segway than a song, is in no way corrosive or minimalist, but rather a soothing little diddly that most definitely seems to have its place, a relief from the intense visions on the first half of the album, and a pat on the back to go on. In Bob and Nature Boy, Les creates characters and stories that give a twisted and lighthearted look at dementia, making the listener laugh and cringe at the same time. While some of the songs may feel a bit hollow, the mood is uniquely Primus. Primus has always been a band that takes itself with a grain of salt, so to scrutinize their work as anything more than well done amusement is probably a waste of time. It might not be a masterpiece, but I like this album, and wonder how these guys express what they do and maintain a semblance of sanity. Perhaps they dont.

Primus aren't for everyone, and this is sort of the darkest, most experimental Primus album, so much like an actual can of Pork Soda, some of this stuff can be hard to digest. That said, while I'd reccomend getting a couple other albums first just so you're used to the Primus style to begin with, what's here is great once you've let it sink into your brain right. Primus has always been about finding weird grooves, and there's plenty of them here, although they're kind of done in less of a king crimson/fusion kind of way and more of a disorienting drugged out kind of way. I mean "My Name Is Mud" has no actual notes in it and verses written in iambic pentamater, and that was the hit. Elsewhere, "welcome to this world" features a bassline so oddly fast and doodly sounding that I remember putting on a mix tape with that as the first song and everyone thinking there was something wrong with the tape player, and "hamburger train" sounds like Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde going on an endless duel over who can make the strangest noises come out of his respective instrument while Herb the drummer keeps the pace. And if that's not enough to make you want this, you're probably not going to be a fan

Primus is one of my favorite bands, so the fact that you can start to see their creative decline on this album is dissapointing to say the least. However, the album itself is still very good. Not nearly the brilliance of Sailing on Seas of Cheese or Frizzle Fry, but a good listen nevertheless. Still better than Tales From the Punchbowl, which I bought basically just for the song "Southbound Pachyderm."

Standouts:

"Welcome to This World"

"DMV"

"Natureboy"