The Meat Puppets’ most optimistic album begins with a declaration of satisfaction: “This is paradise / Ivory whales high on corn bread / Wind-filled sails fly to the door step.” No band has ever appeared more at peace with a world of acid-induced surrealism. Moments of buoyancy and determination define Huevos, from the joyous declaration of “I Love the Rain” to the self-fulfilling fantasy of “Sexy Music” (where Curt Kirkwood asks for “superhuman strength / To wipe out what is wrong”). “Fruit” contains one of the group’s most touching and vivid images of hope: “I don’t pay no attention / To the nastiness going down just above me / Within my reach there’s plenty of good things hanging ’round / Fruit on the vine, ice water fountains.” Recorded in a matter of days between tour stops, Huevos captures the band in a fresh, clean state of mind. There is still worry and self-loathing lurking beneath the surface (read between the lines on album closers “Dry Rain” and “I Can’t Be Counted On”), but on the whole the album feels like a respite of clarity before the personal and professional storms to come. And even though Meat Puppets II was Kurt Cobain’s declared favorite, you can trace Nirvana’s roots here in Curt Kirkwood’s slurred, yearning wail.