- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
With Steve Turner's guitar a buzzing hangover and Mark Arm snarling with irresistibly creepy restraint, Mudhoney's eighth studio album finds the band rocking like it's 1988 . . . or 2008.
-
No envelopes are pushed on the quartet's latest, The Lucky Ones. But there's an increase in firepower that makes it their best effort in a while.
-
Mudhoney remain bloody but unbowed, heavyweight champions of fuzz and feedback, and on the evidence of The Lucky Ones, no one with any sense is going to challenge their title anytime soon; they built this strange machine, and they can drive it better than anyone before or since.
-
Stooges riffs and Mark Arm's dirty growl bring alive tales of lusty romance played with a timeless swagger and an infectious smirk, though the lyrics do little justice to the power of the songs.
-
Although Mudhoney aren’t shaking things up too much with their established formula, The Lucky Ones shows no signs of the band mellowing out, and their bloozy, fuzzy rock action still sounds pretty damn great after a couple High Lifes.
-
The Lucky Ones is unlikely to garner any new fans for Mudhoney, which is a shame because this is one of the best albums of their career.
-
The bedrock combination of redlined guitars and Mark Arm's adenoidal wail has only been rendered more caustic by two decades of watching lesser lights cash out. [June 2008, p.114]
-
Some will call this regression, but longtime fans will likely call it focused and celebrate the return to form represented on The Lucky Ones.
-
The Lucky Ones is a solid record chock full of classic sludge, pissed off yelps, and witty (almost existential) lyrics.
-
Longtime fans may accuse the band of losing its edge with age, but The Lucky Ones is still an exciting and efficient bridge between the Stooges' growling ruckus and Nirvana's noisy pop anthems.
-
MojoMudhoney celebrate 20 years of mucus-crusted punk hootenannies with a raw restatement of basic priciples. [June 2008, p.113]
-
UncutThe Lucky Ones frames this new worldview in a punchier, tauter, leaner sound--less fuzz but more crunch. [July 2008, p.104]
-
Alternative PressThe end result escalates The Lucky Ones into one of the finest albums Mudhoney has ever produced, as well as one of the best albums of the year thus far. [July 2008, p.158]
-
The eleven tracks here are tight, raw, and marked by insistent thumping rhythms and taught chunky riffs, laying the groundwork for one of the band’s most straight-ahead rock albums in years.
-
The Lucky Ones shows him to be as reassuringly sarcastic and self-deprecating as ever.
-
Lucky Ones is the sound of a band that obviously knows not to fuck with a good thing.