Mudhoney has set a March 7 release date for its ninth Sub Pop album, “Under a Billion Suns.” The 11-track set features backing vocals from Christy McWilson and Amy Allison on “Let’s Drop In” and “I Saw the Light,” plus several tracks with a horn section arranged by Craig Flory.
And while Sub Pop co-founder Jonathan Poneman previously told Billboard.com the album was “more political” than typical Mudhoney fare, frontman Mark Arm says, “That may be a little exaggerated. There are four songs where those things are touched on. It’s more kind of mocking than the stark, black or white approach.”
“There’s a lot of satire involved,” he continues. “And to say that’s never been the case before, I mean, one of the first things we ever recorded was ‘Hate the Police!'”
Although songs like “Hard on for War” (which was written around the time of the U.S.’s 2003 invasion of Iraq), “On the Move,” and “I Saw the Light” have been appearing in Mudhoney’s recent live shows, Arm says the band wasn’t particularly looking to fine-tune the material before it hit the studio.
“There’s something to be said for something that is completely spontaneous,” he says. “On the last record [2002’s ‘Since We’ve Become Translucent’], we recorded everything as we wrote it. But this time, we knew we’d only be able to go in on three separate weekends, so we did each one with a different engineer.”
Source billboard.com.
