Meat Puppets

A brief history of the Meat Puppets: two brothers, twelve albums, 29 years, three cameo songs on Nirvana's MTV Unplugged, an indefinite amount of cocaine consumption, two breakups and two reunions. However, the Arizona band seems aware of its tumultuous past with its new album, the aptly named Sewn Together, which feels more like a Meat Puppets greatest-hits package than reunion record No. 2. Sewn resists the temptation to modernize the Puppets' damaged alt-rock or overcompensate for lost time. "I'm Not You" echoes the cow-punk of the band's SST albums, while the LSD-laced guitar solos of "Blanket of Weeds" are an acid flashback to Butthole Surfer Paul Leary's Too High to Die production. The title track focuses on Curt Kirkwood's signature warbling voice and comfortingly reminds Meat Puppets fans that, in the words of the 1994 hit "Backwater," "some things never change."