Perhaps because they’d heard somewhere that The Butthole Surfers were once called subversive because they’d signed to a major label twelve years ago and had since signed on to another smaller label that still had major-sized distribution (Surfdog and Universal respectively), in the last five years Ween has hopped between three of the big four record companies. Now allied with Universal, Ween’s newest offering is only really a walnut color; fans will notice that tracks including “Friends,” “Learnin’ To Love” and “The Fruit Man” are all vintage Ween insofar as none of the conventional rules apply and the band has twisted and contorted the sounds on this album masterfully into something uniquely Ween, but the difference here is that half the tracks on La Cucaracha also betray a heavy Zappa and Magic Band influence. Songs like “My Own Bare Hands” and “Object” bear the marks of Frank Zappa’s black humor and the acrobatic opening instrumental (“Fiesta”) betrays a newfound gift for arrangement not previously heard on the older, more home grown-sounding Ween albums. Likewise, “Sweetheart In The Summer” indulges Zappa’s perennial love affair with cock-eyed love songs.
Obviously, those songs that tempt these generic fates are derailed by the band’s DIY ethos so they sound off-center, but on La Cucaracha the arrangements and instrumentation support them in a straight rather than rubber-faced way. It’s actually really, really exhilarating to hear Ween put their money where their collective mouth is and illustrate their capabilities without sounding like they’re just fucking around. Fans may balk, but La Cucaracha is a pretty incredible album because it plays both sides of the fence: again, like Zappa and Captain Beefheart, it’s both goofy and accomplished—that makes it a landmark for the band in some strange way.
La Cucaracha is out October 23 on Universal.
For more on Ween, including tour dates, click here: www.ween.com
