Pop Music Reviews : Mudhoney Wallows in Grunge-Core at Palace

OK, the concept of Northwest grunge has been as thoroughly discussed as any rock ‘n’ roll trend that’s never produced a platinum album. As with politically-correct politics, a sort of backlash has emerged in the press that’s bigger than grunge was to begin with.

Still, the prototypical Washington state-based grunge-core band Mudhoney, which played the Palace Friday, continues to rock dudes’ souls. In Seattle, even street derelicts wear Mudhoney T-shirts. In two focused sets at the Palace, the foursome, whose new album, “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge,” rules the college radio charts, pushed its brand of anarchic pop over the edge.

Aficionados have always wondered what would happen when Mudhoney learned to play its instruments, whether it would lose the shrieking intensity, the fuzzed-out sloppy edge that brought its live shows closer to primo Blue Cheer than to the Stooges-by-numbers of many of its peers. And in fact the shows Friday started out with a sort of flat, intentionally dispassionate ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll in the manner of latter-day Lou Reed. The band didn’t even flip its hair.

Then somebody stomped on a fuzz pedal, somebody else started to wail instead of croon, and the band whomped into overdrive a third of the way through the set, playing its songs just slightly faster than its fingers would permit it, transforming the hall with its patented post-Hendrix howl.