"Hard driving riff rock, Meat Puppets style.
"Huevos" was recorded in four days and released less than six
months after "Mirage". But where that album was spacey and lush,
"Huevos" is rough and spontaneous. Writing for the Village Voice,Howard
Hampton declared it to be "steeped in bliss", while in the the
Los Angeles Times,Gina Arnold called it "the band's best effort yet"."
(vom Rykodisc - ReRelease)
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"From out of the scrub brush on the edge of the desert comes a trio
who were making their brand of music well before alt-country and Americana
were the new thing to come down the pike. Don't get me wrong, I love the
alt-America stuff, but there is something right and real about the Puppets
and the songs they sing. This record is a bit more mellow than I remembered
the first time around, but that in no way reduces the amount of pleasure
to be gotten from a few repeated listenings. The cover art appears to
be painted in thick layers in a slightly southwestern palette. Hey, any
cover with a bottle of Tobasco on it is welcome at my table, any meal
of the day."
(Tralfaz-Archive)
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Recorded and released just a few months after the experimental Mirage, 1987's Huevos was a return to the Meat Puppets' earlier, more straight-ahead direction. The band (guitarist/singer Curt Kirkwood in particular) had always voiced their admiration of ZZ Top, and Huevos contained Billy Gibbons & Co.'s influence more than any other Puppets release. But don't be misled — it wasn't a ripoff, the trio simply incorporated ZZ's sound into their energetic, unpredictable rock. It also didn't hurt that Huevos contained the band's best set of songs since 1985's classic Up on the Sun, comprised almost entirely of heavy rockers ("Paradise," "Look at the Rain," "Crazy," "Fruit," "Automatic Mojo," "Dry Rain," etc.). Another major improvement of Huevos over Mirage was that Derrick Bostrom's drums no longer sounded metronome-perfect and robotic, giving the performances a much livelier edge. The bonus tracks included on the '99 Ryko reissue included several demos of Huevos tunes, including a lengthier and much more laid-back version of "Sexy Music," as well as a medley of "I Can't Be Counted On" and Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me to Do."
(by Greg Prato, All Music Guide)
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