Thirty years later, the world is experiencing a particularly high-watermoment for both those ideals. But just in time, vocalist Mark Arm,guitarist Steve Turner, bassist Guy Maddison, and drummer DanPeters are back with Digital Garbage, a barbed-wire-trimmedcollection of sonic brickbats. Arm's raw yawp and his bandmates'long-honed chemistry make Digital Garbage an ideal release valve forthe 2018 pressure cooker. “My sense of humor is dark, and these aredark times,” says Arm. “I suppose it’s only getting darker.”
Digital Garbage opens with the swaggering “Nerve Attack,” which canbe heard as a nod both to modern-life anxiety and the ever-increasingthreat of warfare. The album's title comes from the outro of “KillYourself Live,” which segues from a revved-up Arm organ solo into ableak look at the way notoriety goes viral. Arm says: “people reallyseem to find validation in the likes—and then there's Facebook Live,where people have streamed torture and murder, or, in the case ofPhilando Castile, getting murdered by a cop. In the course of writingthat song, I thought about how, once you put something out thereonline, you can’t wipe it away. It’s always going to be there—even ifno one digs it up, it’s still out there floating somewhere.”
Appropriately enough, bits of recent news events float through therecord: “Please Mr. Gunman,” on which Arm bellows “We'd rather diein church!” over his bandmates' careening charge, was inspired by aTV-news bubblehead's response to a 2017 church shooting, while theominous refrain that opens the submerged-blues of “Next MassExtinction” calls back to last summer's clashes in Charlottesville.
Mudhoney's core sound—steadily pounding drums, swamp-thingbass, squalling guitar wobble, Arm's hazardous-chemicalvoice—remains on Digital Garbage, which the band recorded withlongtime collaborator (and Digital Garbage pianist) Johnny Sangster atthe Seattle studio Litho. The anti-religiosity shimmy “21st CenturyPharisees” builds its case with Maddison's woozy synths, which Armsays “add a really nice touch to the proceedings.” Digital Garbage closes with “Oh Yeah,” a brief celebration of skateboarding, surfing,biking, and the joy provided by these escape valves. “I would’ve reallyjust loved to write songs about just hanging out on the beach, andgoing on a nice vacation,” says Arm. “But, you know, that probablydoesn’t make for great rock.”
Mudhoney, however, know what does make great rock—and the riffsand fury of Digital Garbage will stand the test of time, even if theparticulars fade away. “I've tried to keep things somewhat universal,so that this album doesn’t just seem like of this time—hopefully someof this stuff will go away,“ Arm laughs. “You don’t want to say in thefuture, ‘Hey, those lyrics are still relevant. Great!’”
