Primus - Sailing The Seas Of Cheese

180-gram LP
Contains insert with lyrics


Audio Quality: 4/5
Song Quality: 5/5
Packaging: 3/5


Okay. In the interest of complete transparency, I must confess that this is one of my all-time favorite records, and it has been since the highly impressionable age of 15. As a teenager learning to play the bass, a friend eventually handed me a copy of this record, burned onto a CD-R with the name scrawled on the front. I put it on while heading home from school one day, and when I got to my driveway I was on track 3, "Sgt. Baker." I proceeded to sit in my car, in the driveway, until the whole album was over. It was one of the most mesmerizing musical experiences of my entire life... as I'm sure it has been for so many aspiring bass players, young and old. Though I must say, this is definitely not just a record for bass dorks. It's not even a record that's just for people who love hearing music with instrumental virtuosity. Rather, it's a record with some of the most innovative songwriting arrangements that have ever been recorded. Primus take absolutely insane instrumental performances and manage to craft on top of them songs that are undeniably catchy, yet uniquely twisted and dissonant.

It's hard for me to go over highlights of this record, because it really is a full-album experience. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this album's notable singles, "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver," and "Tommy The Cat," the former featuring one of Les Claypool's most famous two-hand tapping bass lines, and the latter a fast-paced spoken-word funk explosion featuring Tom Waits sharing vocal duties. "Tommy The Cat" also contains a frantic 7-second bass solo, guaranteed to be unlike anything you've heard before. Other notable moments are in "Seas of Cheese," the album's sea-shanty theme song which opens the record, "American Life," a more mellow venture rhythmically anchored to a busy yet laid back looping bass line, and "Is It Luck?," featuring an absolutely frantic instrumental and vocal performance that sounds like it's always just about to completely fall apart.

I know Primus is best known for Les Claypool's unconventional and virtuoso bass playing, but you absolutely cannot ignore the performances of Larry LaLonde on guitar and Tim Alexander on drums. Alexander's drumming is arguably just as innovative as Claypool's bass playing, and the two of them are able to assemble very natural grooves out of such abstract individual parts. In another way, Larry LaLonde might actually be the least conventional member of the band. Not only does he write very dissonant parts that tend to scream and squeal over the track, but as a lead guitarist, he has that rare talent of knowing both what to play and when to play. There are some tracks ("Tommy the Cat," "American Life," "Jerry Was A Race Car Driver") where the guitar is absent for huge stretches of time. You don't miss it when it's gone, and when it returns, it's all the more powerful and beneficial to the song. A tasteful AND noisy guitarist... not something you can find everywhere.

As you can tell by the wordiness of this review, I wasn't exaggerating my love for this band and this record. So how does it sound? Good. Though perhaps not as great as I could have hoped for. The first thing I noticed was that the drums on this record sound fantastic. Really vibrant and separated, deep pounding drums. The rest of the mix definitely sounded nice, but there wasn't a tremendous difference from the version I could remember hearing so many times on CD. As an experiment, I did an A-B comparison of the CD and the LP. In doing so, I can confirm that the vinyl mixing / mastering definitely sounds nicer than the CD, especially in the low-end, which sounds much more rich and pronounced. For this record, that is much appreciated. In the mid-range and up, the mix isn't quite as bright and articulate as I might want it to be. This isn't really much of a detriment, more of a preference, and I found that cranking the volume to "rock out" levels fixes that problem and makes the whole mix sound very clear and natural. So if you go out and buy this record, be sure to do that. I'm sure you'll be pleased.

Packaging = nothing special. The single LP sits in a generic white sleeve within the slipcase package. They include a single sheet containing all the lyrics. That's it. If you own the CD it's essentially all the same artwork you've seen before. It would have been nice if there was a slightly different presentation, or if it included a download, but what can you do?

This release got delayed several times before it was finally released, and I was greatly anticipating it's arrival. Again, it wasn't quite as fantastic as I had hoped it could be, but for a fan like me, it's definitely worthwhile to own on record. If you somehow haven't heard this record before, the vinyl is also worth a spin. It's a warm and clear mix and is definitely superior to the CD... just not as superior as I hoped. Now get me an all-analog re-issue of The Brown Album.

Buy the LP from ElusiveDisc.com
Buy the LP from InSound.com

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