(THE) MELVINS: (A) SENILE ANIMAL (REVIEW)
November 17th 2006 00:14
(THE) MELVINS
(A) SENILE ANIMAL
(2006; IPECAC)
RATING:
TRACK LISTING: 1) The Talking Horse / 2) Blood Witch / 3) Civilized Worm / 4) A History Of Drunks / 5) Rat Faced Granny / 6) The Hawk / 7) You’ve Never Been Right / 8) A History Of Bad Men / 9) The Mechanical Bride / 10) A Vast Filthy Prison
(The) Melvins have been crawling around the same sludgy tar pit for some time now, but it’s constantly amazing how many glistening, valuable treasures they continue to find down there. (A) Senile Animal (2006) sees the boys taking on not just a new bass player to replace Kevin Rutmanis (of the Cows and Tomahawk fame), but an extra drummer to boot. Drummer Coady Willis and bassist Jared Warren were recruited from the band Big Business, and the former’s percussive trade-offs with longtime sticksman Dale Crover breathe some new life into a band who were never gasping for air in the first place.
Those duel-drums don’t gimme no doldrums here, and many of these tunes chug along like an off-kilter steam train, rattling to a stop with cacophonous drum rolls. While the drums add a satisfying primal stomp to tunes like the catchy, “Civilized Worm”; the howling hardcore thrash of “You’ve Never Been Right”; and the lurching monster, “The Mechanical Bride”—there’s texture and nuance too. The opener “The Talking Horse” musters up a deep, bassheavy groove like Kyuss used to, with heavy beats playing off against lighter ones to create a tight yet schizophrenic propulsion. “Rat Faced Granny” has its toughguy boogie backed with some rattling fills that sound like someone playin’ on venetian blinds. And swishy, spooky percussion permeates the warm yet eerie closer, “A Vast Filthy Prison.”
But it’s not just the double-drum attack that makes this album so asskickin’. Everyone in the band provides lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osbourne with backing harmonies: sometimes beautiful and soaring, sometimes rousing and shouty in a punk rock, call-and-response fashion. This helps make this one of (the) Melvins’ most accessible albums in a long time, with the cruisey ‘70s riff of “Civilized Worm” sounding like an outtake from Stoner Witch (1994), and the upbeat and punky “A History of Drunks” coming off like a pop tune despite its disembodied vocals and squidgy weirdness. But the best tune has to be the slow, doomy masterpiece that is “A History of Bad Men”. For all its distorted menace, there’s a beautiful melodicism that conjures (the) Melvins’ heroes Kiss; thanks mostly to the way Buzz flexes his vocal chords into a memorable hook, but made all the better for its lovely harmonies.
I am so damn impressed with (the) Melvins, and not just because wearing one of their t-shirts helped me get a stint writing reviews for Tsunami magazine. This is a band who helped kickstart the grunge movement in the Pacific Northwest, and are still standing; always pushing themselves to dizzying new heights and into weird, unexplored nooks and crannies. Bravo to (the) Melvins, for being one of the most creative groups of the old school indie punk ethos who can still teach the kids a trick or two.
***
IMAGES
(A) Senile Animal*
(album cover used under fair dealing)
* images on this page were taken from the following Wikipedia page:
(A) Senile Animal
(A) SENILE ANIMAL
(2006; IPECAC)
RATING:
TRACK LISTING: 1) The Talking Horse / 2) Blood Witch / 3) Civilized Worm / 4) A History Of Drunks / 5) Rat Faced Granny / 6) The Hawk / 7) You’ve Never Been Right / 8) A History Of Bad Men / 9) The Mechanical Bride / 10) A Vast Filthy Prison
(A) Senile Animal (2006)
Those duel-drums don’t gimme no doldrums here, and many of these tunes chug along like an off-kilter steam train, rattling to a stop with cacophonous drum rolls. While the drums add a satisfying primal stomp to tunes like the catchy, “Civilized Worm”; the howling hardcore thrash of “You’ve Never Been Right”; and the lurching monster, “The Mechanical Bride”—there’s texture and nuance too. The opener “The Talking Horse” musters up a deep, bassheavy groove like Kyuss used to, with heavy beats playing off against lighter ones to create a tight yet schizophrenic propulsion. “Rat Faced Granny” has its toughguy boogie backed with some rattling fills that sound like someone playin’ on venetian blinds. And swishy, spooky percussion permeates the warm yet eerie closer, “A Vast Filthy Prison.”
But it’s not just the double-drum attack that makes this album so asskickin’. Everyone in the band provides lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osbourne with backing harmonies: sometimes beautiful and soaring, sometimes rousing and shouty in a punk rock, call-and-response fashion. This helps make this one of (the) Melvins’ most accessible albums in a long time, with the cruisey ‘70s riff of “Civilized Worm” sounding like an outtake from Stoner Witch (1994), and the upbeat and punky “A History of Drunks” coming off like a pop tune despite its disembodied vocals and squidgy weirdness. But the best tune has to be the slow, doomy masterpiece that is “A History of Bad Men”. For all its distorted menace, there’s a beautiful melodicism that conjures (the) Melvins’ heroes Kiss; thanks mostly to the way Buzz flexes his vocal chords into a memorable hook, but made all the better for its lovely harmonies.
I am so damn impressed with (the) Melvins, and not just because wearing one of their t-shirts helped me get a stint writing reviews for Tsunami magazine. This is a band who helped kickstart the grunge movement in the Pacific Northwest, and are still standing; always pushing themselves to dizzying new heights and into weird, unexplored nooks and crannies. Bravo to (the) Melvins, for being one of the most creative groups of the old school indie punk ethos who can still teach the kids a trick or two.
***
IMAGES
(A) Senile Animal*
(album cover used under fair dealing)
* images on this page were taken from the following Wikipedia page:
(A) Senile Animal
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