Click to listen to Primus' 'Hoinfodaman'

In the Nineties, this Northern California trio were alternative rock's odd band out, aggro-funk punks with freak roots: the scathing chuckles of Frank Zappa, Rush's tech-metal fluency and the improvising verve of the Grateful Dead. That lineage is present and blooming on Primus' first full-length album in more than a decade, along with the machine- gun pop of Les Claypool's bass guitar. The writing is more a series of creepy pranks than a set of tunes, but Claypool, guitarist Larry LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane are a tight knottyrhythm team, and their propulsion under the comic vocals in "Tragedy's a'Comin' " and in the manic marching jam "Last Salmon Man" is no monkey business.

Related:
• Les Claypool: Return of Drummer Jay Lane has 'Breathed Life' Back Into Primus
• Exclusive Stream: Primus' Twitchy 'Hoinfodaman'

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.