Meat Puppets: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Cris Kirkwood (vocals, bass); Derrick Bostrom (drums).

Reissue producers: Derrick Bostrom, Tami Blevins, Ian Gilchrist, Troy Hansbrough.

Recorded in 1983. Includes liner notes by Michael Azerrad, Derrick Bostrom, Robert Azerrad & Tom Carson.

Digitally remastered by Stuart Sullivan (Arkadelphia's House Studio, November 1998).

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Personnel: Curt Kirkwood (vocals, guitar); Derrick Bostrom (drums).

Recording information: total Access, Redondo Beach, CA.

The early-1980s post-punk musings of the Meat Puppets give new meaning to the term "alternative country." Instead of adding a country flavor to traditional rock, or overdriving a honky-tonk sound, the group achieved a genuine marriage of avant-rock weirdness and earthy Americana on this, their defining release. The frenzied two-step of "Magic Toy Missing" and "Lost" mates hoedown with electric freakout. The group's tripping-in-the-desert sense of neo-psychedelia is displayed at its apex on the twisted classic "Plateau" and the acid-drenched country-punk of "New Gods." Like Neil Young (a strong influence), the Meat Puppets were blessed with a totally natural sense of strangeness that allowed them to be both of the earth and beyond it simultaneously. This reissue's generous helping of bonus tracks helps sweeten an already immensely appealing pot.

The Meat Puppets' second album, 1984's appropriately titled Meat Puppets II, has since gone down in the rock history books as an all-time classic, and rightfully so. The Meat Puppets were one of the first punk acts to inject different musical styles into their sound, something that was an absolute no-no at the time -- especially the sparkling sounds of country. The trio resembles a more conventional band than on their white-noise self-titled debut; the songwriting had improved dramatically, and you could even clearly decipher the playing and singing this time around. As many '90s alt-rock fans know, Meat Puppets II reached a whole new generation of fans when Nirvana covered the album's three best tracks on their MTV Unplugged special from 1994 -- "Plateau," "Lake of Fire," and "Oh, Me." But this was an incredibly consistent recording from beginning to end; other highlights included the instrumentals "Magic Toy Missing," "Aurora Borealis," and "I'm a Mindless Idiot," the rockers "Split Myself in Two" and "New Gods," plus such mellower fare as "Lost," "We're Here," "Climbing," and "The Whistling Song." An essential recording that sounds as fresh and inviting as the day it was released. [The 1999 Rykodisc reissue containes seven additional tracks, including the contrasting two-part epic "Teenager(s)," as well as "What to Do" and "100 Percent of Nothing."] ~ Greg Prato