Kevin Bronson on July 30th, 2014

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We have no idea what makes us happier – the fact that the Muffs have released their first album in 10 years or the fact that they have been embraced by the crew at Burger Records, whose young roster is dotted by Xerox copies of garage-rockers from the Muffs’ heyday and before. Either way, if you can say it without a trace of snide, “Whoop Dee Doo.” That’s the title of the trio’s 12-track, 37-minute blast, out this week, which is as biting and subversively fun as anything they released in their great five-album run between 1993 and ’99 (self-titled, “Blonder and Blonder,” “Happy Birthday to Me” and “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow”). Kim Shattuck, back at the Muffs forefront after a ballyhooed, stunted stint last year as Pixies bassist, has lost none of her shrieking, cherubic charm, and she’s back with Ronnie Barnett
and Roy McDonald in the same lineup the band has boasted for 20 years. In the Muffs’ grandest turn, “Kids in America” (recognizable from the 1995 film “Clueless”), Shattuck sings “Downtown the young ones are growing … Everybody live for the music-go-round.” And so it turns.

||| Stream: “Weird Boy Next Door” and “Up And Down Around”

||| Live: The Muffs, along with Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls, Bleached, Tashaki Miyaki, Shannon & the Clams and more, play the Burger a-Go-Go on Saturday at the Observatory.

Photo by Kim Shattuck