Major label debut time again, this time for those bedroom maestros of weirdness, Ween. For the unitiated, Ween sound exactly like what you would imagine two young men brought up on junk culture, left to their own devices with a 4-track tape recorder will sound like. Except this time they've gone and built themselves a *proper* studio with their record-company advance. The result is Ween's most consistent album to date, with all their trademark eclecticism and weirdness embedded in a more polished, deeper sound.
Stylistically theres everything here - cheesy country and spaghetti western, bubblegum pop, toytown melodies, overblown 70's rock, stoned synth- funk, latin percussion and more. The lyrics swing between serious and not so serious comments on relationships to surreal and/or sick humour. In the latter category, "Mister, Could You Please Help My Pony ?" and the cartoon voice and upbeat chorus of "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)" are both hilarious and unsettling and guaranteed to offend everyone without a sense of humor.
Ween's humor is both their strength and weakness. They can explore numerous different styles in the knowledge that should they get anywhere near embarassing territory, such as the Lenny Kravitz sound-a-like "Freedom of 76", that they can chuck in a few daft lyrics, arch an eyebrow and claim they're being ironic. But they also run the danger, as shown by their 1993 hit-single "Push Th' Little Daisies", of being perceived as a novelty act - a sort of Weird Al Yankovic for the hip.
There's less discordant weirdness and personal in-jokes than before, making the whole thing more accessible to the outsider than previous outings but the 40 buck guitar and bossanova auto-rhythm keyboard remain to frighten off anyone coming in here expecting the professional weirdness of someone like Frank Zappa or Mr. Bungle.
The simplistic nature of the songs means there's always a danger that they won't bear up to too many repeated listens - it's all very well writing catchy little ditties but a bit of depth to the arrangements helps keep the interest. But for the meantime, with the exception of a couple of unfunny jokes claiming to be songs, this is another fine and varied album from Dean and Gene Ween.
