''Sewn Together'' is American rock band the

Meat Puppets Meat Puppets are an American rock band formed in January 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona. The group's original lineup was Curt Kirkwood (guitar/vocals), his brother Cris Kirkwood (bass guitar/vocals), and Derrick Bostrom (drums). The Kirkwood brother ...

' twelfth full-length studio album, released on May 12, 2009, both on CD and vinyl. It was the follow-up to their 2007 reunion album '' Rise to Your Knees''.

Recording and background

Background

Curt Kirkwood Curtis Matthew "Curt" Kirkwood (born January 10, 1959) is an American musician, best known as the guitarist, singer and primary songwriter for alternative rock group Meat Puppets. Biography Curt Kirkwood formed the Meat Puppets along with h ...

commented in an interview that the album was put together over a short period of time, comparing its production to the group's earlier albums. He said, "In the '80s, we used to just crap this stuff out. Those SST records cost, like, five grand apiece, if that much, and those are the records that made people like us. Now, if I can get away with it, I'll make a record as cheap as I can and put as little work as I can into it, which is what we did with this one. I don't like putting a lot of time into it. We cut a track, and if we've played it halfway right, we're done with it".

Recording and production

''Sewn Together'' was recorded at drummer Ted Marcus' apartment and at The Saltmine Studios in

Mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States. It is the list of U.S. states and territories by area, 6th largest and the list of U.S. states and territories by population, 14 ...

, United States.

Content

Musical style

Courtney Devores of ''

Charlotte Observer ''The Charlotte Observer'' is an American English-language newspaper serving Charlotte, North Carolina, and its metro area. The Observer was founded in 1886. As of 2020, it has the second-largest circulation of any newspaper in the Carolinas. I ...

'' delineated the sound of ''Sewn Together'' as "warm,

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science ...

folk-rock".

Reception

On review aggregation site

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, ''Sewn Together'' has a 71 (out of 100) favorable rating based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The ''

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' said:

Track listing

# "Sewn Together" - 3:07 # "Blanket of Weeds" - 5:14 # "I'm Not You" - 4:27 # "Sapphire" - 4:00 # "Rotten Shame" - 5:19 # "Go to Your Head" - 3:44 # "Clone" - 4:37 # "Smoke" - 3:16 # "S.K.A." - 3:47 # "Nursery Rhyme" - 4:28 # "The Monkey and the Snake" - 3:09 # "Love Mountain" - 3:44

Personnel

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or witho ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

Cris Kirkwood Christopher "Cris" Kirkwood (born October 22, 1960) is an American musician who is the bassist and a founding member of the Meat Puppets, an alternative punk rock band. Biography Raised in Paradise Valley, Arizona, Cris took up the banjo after ...

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

s, vocals * Ted Marcus -

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks ...

; organ on "Love Mountain"

References

{{Authority control 2009 albums Meat Puppets albums Megaforce Records albums