"Have you seen that movie, Dogtown and the Z-Boys?" asks Mudhoney chief Mark Arm from his home in Seattle. "It's a documentary about the people who when I was in junior high i was just totally obsessed with. I hadn't really skateboarded for quite a number of years," he chuckles. "And I saw this movie and I just had the biggest jones for it. I just couldn't hold off anymore. (Mudhoney guitarist) Steve (Turner) started doing it a copule of years ago and I was like, 'Man, you're crazy! you're going to hurt yourself really bad!' And I saw this movie and I was like, 'OK, I'm history!'"

Skateboarding isn't the only youthful passion to which Arm has returned. Mudhoney's major "comeback" effort, Since We've Become Translucent on their original, "grunge" spawning label, Sub Pop is a commanding return to the band's hugely influencial fuzzed out and amped up form. That's not to say there haven't been some modifications. Brass and sax along with the Krautrock sounds of Can and Neu! stand shoulder to shoulder with more traditional Mudhoney ammunition such as The Stooges and sullen Rolling Stones, And Arm's in great rasping voice throughout. Basically it establishes a strong don't argue in the pecking order in the sudden phenomenon of garage rock.

The album comes after something of a hiatus. Bassist Matt Lukin who was cannonised on Pearl Jam's No Code album quit in 1999. The band were lost. Arm and Turner dealt with the departure "by not dealing with it" and instead turned their attention to The Monkeywrench. An offer to tour Brazil in February 2001 got their motors running once again. Eventual bass player, Guy Maddison (Bloodloss and Lubricated Goat) was their first choice to round out the band but he was tied up at nursing school and wasn't able to make it to South America. Instead a friend of Lukin made the trip. After they returned Maddison joined for dates around the U.S. after which they set about writing and recording, a process they also tackled with a twist.

"Normally what I think most bands do is they amass a batch of songs and they go into the studio and record them right? What we did was we would learn like three songs then go into the studio and then record them. Then we'd learn three more and go into a different studio and record them. That's how the record was done with the exception of 'Inside Job' which was recorded in April of 2000 with Wayne Kramer on bass."

The Kramer connection came via a track for Kramer's Beyond Cyberpunk compilation. Arm and Turner were working on The Monkeywrench at that point but were offered $10,000 for a Mudhoney song for the former MC5 guitarist's package.

"He just happened to notice there was a bass sitting there and he asked if he could play it. We're like 'Please do!'"

Overall the album ("two guitars, bass and drums and some guy screaming!") sounds much like everything that Arm has been absorbing since he was at school. "Me and friends in high school used to hang around this record store in the suburban neighbourhood where our school was. It was a used record shop and it just happened to be run by really, really cool people. This was the seventies right? And they would turn us onto everything from The Sex Pistols to Albert Ayler. We were listening to Ornette Coleman records as well as learning about the Velvet Underground and The Stooges and Brian Eno and Roxy Music and stuff."

The album's cosmic eight minute plus opening track, 'Baby, Can You Dig The Light?' and near eight minute Hawkwind like closer, 'Sonic Infusion' are clear testaments to those days. And like that music offer not the lightest concession to commercialism.

"It's not like we're a pop band and we have to get our hooks into people really quickly or anything like that," argues Arm. "We are who we are and people either know us or they'll hear about us through word of mouth or something. They're not going to hear 'Can You Dig The Light?' or any other song on the radio. Well, they might, but it'll be like a college station or something. I just figure we can do what the hell he want!"