Mudhoney: Muff Times.

Since We’ve Become Translucent is in stores now.

Hell yeah, the new Mudhoney album rocks my little world. Since We've Become Translucent, hey - well, they took their bloody time. Sixteen years after they formed, the Seattle rock combo has finally made the best, most consistent, barnstorming record of its bluesy, grungy career.

There's not a dud in earshot. On a Mudhoney album! Would you believe it! The band that has always approached greatness (try 1991's Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and 1995's My Brother The Cow) then tripped over its own endemic smugness and inertia and fallen flat next outing has finally stood up and got it right. I'm relieved.

Mark Arm sounds relieved as well, talking from his Seattle home where it's sunny and warm, in direct contrast to all previous reports that the home of Kurt (Cobain), grunge, SubPop and Mudhoney is perpetually shrouded in a grey gloom and light misty rain that makes habitation by anything other than ducks and manic-depressives nearly impossible.

He even went skateboarding at 7:30am for a couple of hours. Now he's turned 40 he's probably trying to reclaim his youth. He laughs, "I hadn't actually skateboarded for a long time but was recently inspired to pick up the board again. It's coming back pretty well."

Music. This new record is fuckin' enormous.

"I'm really happy with it," he says. "It's really hard for me to judge what our best records are and, of course, the most recent thing always tempt you to go 'This is our best record!'. Whether it is or not is another matter. The Rolling Stones probably say that every time they finish a record."

Even Keef and Mick must know that they aren't Exile On Main Street or Beggar's Banquet.

"You would think they would know but if they do why don't they do something about it?" Arm counters. Maybe they don't get good advice. "Yeah, but why would they need advice? How hard could it be? They should start trying to rip themselves off."

Arm says that for years guitarist Steve Turner wanted the band to record one song over a weekend once a month until it finished an album. That way all the attention would be focused on that one song and, presuming it was written that month, the song would be fresh. Nice idea, but they didn't do it. Hey, this is Mudhoney. Instead they recorded three songs at a time at three different studios with three different engineers, and added a 10th song with the legendary Wayne Kramer on the bass. Instead of getting confused, they got their music fresh.

"I'm not sitting around between albums being a highly prolific songwriter," Arm says. "The way we work is we work together. Usually, somebody brings in a riff or a couple of riffs; the music comes first and we all hammer it out together, then I put the words to it. It's not like I'm a singer/songwriter kind of guy with the band backing me up. We're a real, organic, democratic band."  And they're one of the few survivors of their generation. "Surviving is rather easy," Arm laughs. "You don't have to do much to survive. Keep eating and avoid accidents."

Funny man this. Hey.

"Surviving in the music industry is also relatively easy if you don't approach it as a business. When you deal with the business shit you've got to be smart about it. I think we were half-smart about it - we really did get in a lot of trouble with the IRS [Internal Revenue Service aka the taxman]. If you look at the music for its own sake and damn any over-aspirations then you aren't going to be frustrated by how popular you are or how many records you've sold. That way everything you do is a bonus. It's the opportunity to play and put out records. That's the way we look at it and luckily have been able to continue to look at it."

And the band that began its career at Sub Pop with the Superfuzz Bigmuff EP (1988) is now back on the legendary indie having experienced life on a major with a stint at Reprise (an arm of Warner Bros). Not that it's the same carefree little mob of fans it used to be.

"It's like going to a plot of land in the same neighbourhood but the house has been rebuilt and the neighbourhood's all been gentrified," Arm says. "They are a business now. They wouldn't have survived this long if they hadn't become one. It's not like it was when nobody had any real idea of what they were doing and everybody was high and like flying out of windows. Then, everything was done on a handshake."

Those were the days... but who cares. Mudhoney have gone home, got a new bass player, former West Australian and associate of seminal Oz loonies Lubricated Goat, Guy Peters, when co-founder Matt Lukin left after 12 years, and it seems to have brought the best out of them. About time. Ha, they've even become translucent. And they rock my little world.