Primus Antipop (interscope)

For most of the band's career, Primus has been a sort of hard rock version of They Might Be Giants, combining off-kilter pop songcraft with wacky tales about cracked-out racecar drivers and people named Mud wielding aluminum baseball bats. Like TMBG, this emphasis on the intentionally bizarre has had the effect of limiting the band's audience to adolescent skaters and oddballs and grownups who still like to get silly with it.

Apparently, the band's stint on the 1997 installment of the HORDE tour helped them to realize that it is Les Claypool's funky slap-bass grooves and improvisational skills, not bodacious Yankovic-esque wordplay, that bring folks back for more. Like Phish and other HORDE bands, Primus' thrilling live presence diminishes the snore/giggle factor of Claypool's vaudeville vocals. While silly-titled albums like Sailing the Seas of Cheese can be off-putting, the band's live shows help people to realize that the flimflam cartoon verbiage is only background fodder for what's going on in the musicians' hands. One cannot totally credit the jam-heads for inspiring the focused, technical album that is Antipop, but the exhilaration of an expanding fan base must have gotten into Claypool's head at least a little.

Antipop is quite a misnomer, for it panders to a much broader audience. The cartoon vocals are still in full effect, but the quirkiness seems drowned a bit in big-rock melodies. As seems to be the trend recently, Primus has abandoned their one-take studio tradition in favor of a crack studio team. Rather than dull the band's edge, the studio work actually gives Antipop more gusto. Though largely freshman producers, Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) give Claypool & Co. the same bomb-dropping crunch of their respective outfits. Claypool's bass comes through true as ever, punctuated by buzzsaw guitars and a super-tight rhythm section. While still a little goofy, Antipop owes as much to the funky rock of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as Primus' old selves.

Antipop serves up a real treat in the form of "Eclectic Electric," an eight-minute epic that would be more at home at Lemonwheel than Lollapalooza. The song boasts the canny use of loud/soft dynamics and titillating buildups that make the band such a live winner. It's a nice changeup in the middle of an otherwise fast-paced album. It's not soul, but this record's got boogie to spare, and deserves a listen. Primus will always be more the band of skater T-shirts and bootlegs than Billboard bombshells, but Antipop is an inviting introduction to all comers.

-By Jonas Blank