It's hard enough for a band to survive more than a decade of relatively little commercial success without self-destructing or selling out. On their new album and their second major-label release, Too High to Die, Meat Puppets thrive.

Since starting out as a hardcore-punk band that set land-speed records in 1981, the Pups have picked up quite a few unlikely musical hitchhikers on their long, estranged trip along the two-lane blacktops of America. Heavy metal, psychedelia and country have all been incorporated into their effortlessly eccentric sound.

An inspiration for the late Kurt Cobain, Curt Kirkwood is as unafraid of writing a good melody as he is of wearing a nice dress. The album is full of hooks as well as musical styles. There are cheerfully paranoid metallic anthems to oblivion such as "We Don't Exist" and "Never to Be Found ("Down the road we can see the electric chair/Who'll be first?/I don't know, it's a race"), dadaesque pop ("Severed Goddess Hand"), psychedelic country ballads ("Shine," "Why?") and even an Appalachian stomp ("Comin' Down"). They're all perfect candidates for sing-alongs, if you don't mind singing lyrics as inscrutable as "No severed goddess hand/No plaster in my eye/No picture of a lamb/No goddess hand have I."

The production – by Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers, another indie band that made a blithely untainted transition to major-label act – is as clear as the lyrics are turgid. Though in the past, Curt Kirkwood's vocals have made him sound like the dummy of a gargling ventriloquist, harmonizing with brother Cris helps him with those hard-to-reach notes on this record. And his guitar has never sounded better, whether he's showing off on a heavy-metal solo or laying back for some light country picking.

Some people still believe the old canard that alternative rockers are supposed to labor in obscurity. Meat Puppets prove that signing to a major label doesn't have to be a Faustian bargain. (RS 683)

AL WEISEL