Les Claypool Frog Brigade — Purple Onion

Since his band Primus has been put on hold, founding member and bassist Les Claypool has enough projects to keep him busy. One of these projects is Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, whose 1st studio-album has been released on his Prawn Song label.

Previously a 2 CD set of a live-concert had been released of the Frog Brigade. The material consisted of solo- and Sausage-material and a King Crimson-cover. The second disc was an integral rendition of the Pink Floyd album Animals. Especially disc 1 is one of my favourite Claypool releases ever.

The Frog Brigade is more or Les a solo-project with regulars like Skerik (sax, Critters Buggin’), eenor (guitar), percussionist Mike “Tree Frog” Dillon and many guests. Members from a diverse range of bands like Fishbone, Allman Brothers, Weapon Of Choice, Sausage and other instrumentalists contribute to Purple Onion. Although’s Claypool’s presence makes a comparison to Primus very obvious the sound of the Frog Brigade is much richer with the addition of saxophones, violin and percussion.

Les Claypool’s patented mix of pop, funk and rock is pretty much what you’ve come to expect from him after many Primus albums and miscellaneous other projects. Especially his voice is very typical and I don’t think this record will convert anyone who didn’t like the other projects into fans. The people who have been listening to Primus for the last 10 years might agree with me that this is the best way for Claypool to keep his music interesting and he shouldn’t confine himself in the traditional band situation but preferably enrich his own ideosyncratic sound with as many other interesting musicians as possible.

Purple Onion once again is an inspired release with enough energy and new sounds to entertain Claypool’s fans once again although you pretty much know what to expect. I just hope he’ll find European distribution soon, because the import prices are fairly high these days.