PRIMUS - SAILING THE SEAS OF CHEESE Vinyl LP

Heavyweight 2013 reissue

Opening with the creaky sounds of a ship at sea, Sailing charts the funk-punk waters the San Francisco Bay area band returns to again and again. It's all here: the acerbic humor.

Les Claypool's gurgling fretless bass lines, Larry LaLonde's seasick metal guitar, and Tim Alexander's Bill Bruford-inspired syncopation. The narrator of "Sgt. Baker" aims to "rape your personality," while the reapers of the "American Life" live out their dreams "residing in a cardboard box."

Tom Waits makes a cameo on the funky back-alley tale "Tommy the Cat," and the protagonist of "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver" has "too many cold beers one night" and "wraps himself around a telephone pole." Primus concert fave "Those Damned Blue Collar Tweakers" helps round out this bizarre prog-punk masterpiece. --James Rotondi

Tracks:

1.1 Seas of Cheese
1.2 Here Come the Bastards
1.3 SGT. Baker
1.4 American Life
1.5 Jerry Was a Race Car Driver
1.6 Eleven
1.7 Is It Luck?
1.8 Grandad's Little Ditty
1.9 Tommy the Cat
1.10 Sathington Waltz
1.11 Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers
1.12 Fish on (Fisherman Chronicles, Chapter 2)
1.13 Los Bastardos

Label: Interscope Records