Tag Archives: Melvins

MELVINS LIVE @ THE FOUNDRY, SHEFFIELD

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NO-ONE ROCKS HARDER. END OF.

When Melvins take the stage at 9pm on Saturday 16th August, half the band have already played for an hour. It’s no surprise that Steve McDonald doubles up on bass duties with Red Kross supporting but Dale Crover behind the Kross kit? Bonus. I know zilch about Redd Kross beyond the name – I guess they hung out in a grunge-adjacent strand of the alt-rock rainbow in the early 90s but no tunes come to mind. Not like it matters – their alt-punk energy, power pop hooks, vocal harmonies and rippingly to-the-point solos are catchy and breezy. Tight band, great set.

FUNN FAKT: Sheffield is the first place in the UK that Steve McDonald ever slept. It was in 1992. He told us.

Melvins are a different animal – not just different to Redd Kross but different to every other band out there. This is not news. But seeing them live on such imperious form – which they definitely are tonight – is a reminder of just how potent and ingenious a one-off force they still are and we really, really shouldn’t take them for granted.

With Coady Willis setting up next to Dale Crover, Big Business-era killers like Blood Witch and Evil New War God land with all their original double-drum intensity and, for my tastes, are worth the price of entry alone. With Revolve and Working the Ditch also working their way into the set, it’s game over – Melvins win. Cannot remember now what else got played (did Kicking Machine make it? Hooch?) but that doesn’t matter. What we got was an hour and fifteen minutes of twisted, non-stop riffage that only Melvins can deliver.

And to watch Buzz Osborne is to watch a guy consumed by what he’s doing. Not once does he address the crowd between songs – that’s McDonald’s job, he’s the connector – and not once does he step off the gas. He rocks out, sings hard and plays hard. Ridiculously fckn hard. They all do.

Been on a Melvins binge ever since. Just how it should be.

Melvins CDs
A stack of one-offs

TAKAAT – Amidinin: TRACK OF THE MONTH

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PIGSx7 LIVE IN MANCHESTER, HEAVY FOLK FROM SHEFFIELD, BLAZING POWER-TRIO ROCK FROM NIGER AND MORE

When you step into Manchester’s New Century Hall for a Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs gig on a Friday night, your first thought is:

Marc Riley must be in here somewhere.

Didn’t see him, but he was there – confirmed it when the band were in session on his 6 Music radio show three days later. Tucked away at the back for ear protection. Nice.

Non-sightings of Mr Riley aside, what can you expect from Pigsx7 live?

Oversized doomy bouncing howling slamming ear-ringing max volume euphorics with pink shorts and a workout vest, that’s what. If you’ve seen them before, you’ll know the score with Matt Baty’s onstage kit – it’s a self deprecating pop at the genre’s aggro-macho hardman vibes, shot through with ritualistic stage moves summoning some sort of communion with the heaviness gods. Launching the set with a shamanically extended The Wyrm (I think) and signing off with shit-kicking tarmac tribute A66, it’s a good-times ruckus start to end.

With short mid-tempo tracks like Detroit and The Glitch getting plenty of exposure ahead of Death Hilarious being released, it’s easy to forget the wrecking-ball breakdowns in Pigs’ music and it’s these slow dooming slams that really leap out live. Caught me off guard a bit – it’s been a while – but in the best way. Other highlights include a non-competitive Headbanger of the Night award, plenty of anti-Download patter (it’s a Venga Boys thing) and the perma-seismic bass of John-Michael Joseph Hedley.

Walking back down Oldham Street around 10.45pm, there were loads of people sitting in a line on the pavement. What in the name of cold arse cheeks is going on?

Queue for Record Store Day 2025. At Piccadilly Records. The night before…

Did you go RSD-ing? Was it worth it? Having moved to a town where there is no record shop, that Piccadilly Records queue was the nearest I got to any RSD action.

Slight fomo at that point. Still haven’t written up last year’s RSD find, which is a shame because it’s fckn ace. Even better, it was a CD. Cop for that, vinyl fetishists.

Just before we hit some killer new sounds, can we once again praise the Melvins and their now pathological consistency? After Tarantula Heart formed a stalwart noise rock trilogy of excellence in 2024 alongside Jesus Lizard and Shellac, they’ve only gone and put another one out already – well, Melvins 1983 have. Done it in the same month, too: April. Having squeezed a couple of listens of Thunderball so far, the first impressions are more than promising – a twisted, heavy Melvins 1983 shorn of the jokes that thinned the quality of Working With God. They play Sheffield in August. Cannot wait.

Right then, off we go with some single track highlights.

JIM GHEDI – Sheaf & Feld

David Eugene Edwards plopped onto the radar recently with a project with Al Cisneros, which is uncanny and timely because there’s a 16 Horsepower air to this dense, metallic, ensemble folk shanty by Sheffield’s Jim Ghedi. With its one-two swing, Sheaf & Feld is built for movement and group action – a communal, earthy hymn to keep spirits high while bodies battle or toil. And it’s a bit like this Archie Bronson Outfit cracker from 2006.

TAKAAT – Amidinin

Immediate Mdou Moctar vibes come flying off this unpolished electrified attack. When you find out that Takaat is in fact everybody in Mdou Moctar’s band who isn’t called Mdou Moctar, it’s so obvious. The energy is up, like Funeral for Justice, the triple-time rat-tat rhythm – check those deft beats by Souleymane Ibrahim – drives hard with no time to catch breath and the guitars are saturated with distortion. Amidinin is very much a live-action jam. Scintillating stuff.

THE OTOLITH – Glimmer

When Myrkur goes full blend between blackened metal and ethereal Scandinavian folk, it’s a killer combination for reasons you can’t always place. It just works. Glimmer by The Otolith gifts us a similar genre-blending deal that feels so organic you wonder why it’s not the norm. With sea-siren vocals and viola symphonics, it’s a seductive, enchanting trip that soon becomes darkened by brief but transformative visitations from Riff Lord and Hell Voice, aka the post-metal deathly sludge bit. Hauntingly beautiful and brutish, Glimmer beguiles and intoxicates.

MCLUSKY – People Person

Confession: despite knowing the name, this is the first mclusky music I have ever heard. But if their early noughties heyday was anything like People Person then shame on me for missing it – and thank Ipecac for spreading the word because this simmer-to-boiling-point fist fight is right up the piss-damp alley of anyone with a bent for slab rock physicality, predatory bass and caustic wordage. Ipecac is a good home. Want to see office workers lose their shit and beat each other with keyboards? Watch mclusky’s People Person video.

FUCKED UP – Disabuse

Dropping all notion of melodic hookery or progressive art-punk structures, Disabuse sees Fucked Up channel their name more literally to throw up a cathartic hardcore speed assault. Save it for when you need … a cathartic hardcore speed assault. To bang your head to. Blowtorch rock, check it here.

’til next time!

Monthly rewind
The monthly music rewind

PROJECT GEMINI – After the Dawn (Large Plants remix): TRACK OF THE MONTH

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Check this Rewind – no chitchat intro. Not through choice, more of a time pressure thing because life has got in the way AND the ‘unable to save draft’ tech hiccup only made things worse so here we are, rewriting and cutting and hurtling to hit publish just to get it done.

And breathe.

Calm.

Oh …

HIGH ON FIRE – The Beating

Never a truer title, and a deserving one, too – haven’t bothered with High on Fire for a few years. No great reason, just … haven’t. They’ve slipped off into a parallel slipstream but a track like The Beating whips them right back, demolishing all complacency in a two-minute rager that burns like a cosmic fireball and leaves a middle-finger shaped trail in the sky. Yeah. The High on Fire template hasn’t been fiddled with so you know the rough drill but the drums here really, really cook – and it’s new drummer Coady Willis, ex Melvins and trusted Melvins live stand-in, who’s driving the band these days. It’s not a brand new track because the album’s been out nearly a year, but having only recently caught it, The Beating makes it in for sheer good time brutality. No mercy.

WALDO’S GIFT – Malcolm’s Law

Instrumental, hard hitting new/post jazz crossover? Whatever this stuff gets called (if anything), Malcolm’s Law by Bristol-based Waldo’s Gift is it. See Run Logan Run for another.

The great thing about a track like this is you can zone in on any element and make a different listening experience for yourself. Want some jazz fusion with metallic edges? Put your receptors on the guitar, my fiend. Chasing a subsonic shakeout? Drop into that bass, man. Spicy beats? YES. Gilles Peterson played this on the radio earlier in the year and if you check Worldwide FM online, you can hear Waldo’s Gift in session last week. Haven’t heard it myself yet and you never know, Malcolm’s Law might be wholly unrepresentative. Then again, so might these words – after all, they’re just an attempt to capture a first impression. Check the track, then check the session.

JESUS LIZARD – Westside

Rack was a 2024 highlight. Did we expect such a resolutely Jesus Lizard-like outing after such an absence? Hard to say but it was a welcome return. Now we have new tracks and Rack’s high bar means expectations have been set …

Westside offers no real hook and doesn’t so much flow as lurch, stop, start and stumble while never quite losing balance … it staggers on. Prime Jesus Lizard, then, if a touch lighter. We’re lucky to have them. Submit.

[if Record Store Day is your thing, look out for Westside and the other two post-Rack tracks on vinyl next month.]

PROJECT GEMINI – After the Dawn (Large Plants remix)

Some classy psyche rock here – not the free-form brain-fry stuff but a more considered, groove-oriented take. There’s a history to Project Gemini but it’s all new to me, as is the news that Wolf People’s Jack Sharp is in Large Plants – which explains the impeccable prog/psyche devotion throughout. The riffs switch to extra fuzz midway through, floating vocals bring Dead Meadow to mind and there’s a classic lead guitar flourish to finish, all anchored by a tumbling, propulsive funk beat. After the Dawn right here.

VELVETINE – Miss Together

Glorious slab of dank quiet-loud here from London’s Velvetine, twisting a gothic edge – the Killing Joke, other-world edge – into an art-punk frame. It slams hard. Shades of late 80s Sub Pop. Squalling guitar abrasion owns the high ground, noise-rock bass bulldozers the low and Mia Scarlet channels Beth Gibbons to both soar and pull us down into the darker recesses. Meet Miss Together.

‘til next time!

Monthly rewind
The monthly music rewind

GUHTS – White Noise: TRACK OF THE MONTH

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BROOKLYN NEW YORK, AUSTIN TEXAS AND CARDIFF CARDIFF SERVE THE RIFFS AND THE RAGE FOR THIS REWIND 

Before dipping into the new discoveries, have we got time to splatter the page with Melvins superlatives? 

New album Tarantula Heart is out THIS VERY WEEK which has, of course, prompted a massive Mel-fest in recent weeks. Question is, what would you choose right now for a Melvins reacquaintance?

Aside from a healthy Stoner Witch loop, it’s the Big Business double-drum era that’s done the business (sorry) round here. (A) Senile Animal, Nude with Boots and The Bride Screamed Murder, played in chronological order, makes for a shit-hot listening project: it’s Melvins with more crunch and pace than sludge and crawl, though we know they’ve always mixed it up pretty wildly. And there’s no shortage of rhythmic complexity on these albums either, cementing the notion that Buzz truly is one of the god-level riff lords of our time. Same goes for Dale on drums. They’re juiced and rejuvenated on The Talking Horse, warped and disorienting on The Savage Hippy and beat-shifting headfucks on Evil New War God, and that’s just three highs out of a possible 30. Monstrous stuff.  

That block of albums is the third of three ‘triples’, which is pretty handy for chunking some Melvins together in a vaguely cohesive way. The major label threesome of Houdini, Stoner Witch and Stag was first. Then there was The Maggot, The Bootlicker and The Crybaby trilogy back when Melvins first hooked up with an infant Ipecac. And finally, the Big Business years just mentioned. No doubt there are more trilogies, intended or not, lurking in The Melvins’ vast idiosyncratic sprawl but those three are huge anchor points.

Best wishes to Dale Crover’s continuing recovery from back surgery.

OK, let’s get back to the main gig with three new tunes.  

GUHTS – White Noise

8 minutes of post-metal lumber that mainlines Cult of Luna? I’m in. And I’m especially in for the vocals. This is the Cult of Luna sound you’ve been waiting for IF the CoL voice(s) sometimes gets in the way, though you might not know that until you’ve heard this. Amber Gardner brings more dimensions and she’s so right for this slow-paced slam that it’s the post-metal embellishment we perhaps didn’t know we needed.

And the drop at 3 minutes is to die for. Pure Isis. Fresh voice, new blood, more GUHTS. White Noise right here.

TRANSIT METHOD – Frostbite

Another 8-minute epic, this time from Austin, Texas, and it’s the kind of metal that goes full Mastodon. Taut 5/4 rhythm, mathcore drive, hyped drums on a permanent fill and cosmic space-scraping solos all build to a thrash pickup, more blazing leads and thunderballs kick work. 

Need a breather? There’s a beach-mellow breakdown and some pretty elastic bass to help you catch some rays … but not for long. This is an opus of sections, too wild and varied to detail, so check it here right the way through to the heroic punch of an ending.  

SHLUG – Grated Thumbs

Don’t know what’s in the Cardiff water these days but this post-hardcore shout/speed rager packs more than just relentless aggro into its dank industrial hardcore. A mid-track breakdown, all bass and space and woozy Fugazi, halts the hyperventilating charge for just about long enough to catch breath and let rip again. Buy it from May 8th or hear it on BBC Radio 6 Music’s New Music Fix until early May. 

Rock enough?

‘til next time! 

Monthly rewind
The monthly music rewind

KING BUZZO’S OFF-KILTER ACOUSTICS

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SEPTEMBER REWIND: NEW BUZZ. THAT’S IT

Yet again, September was Slayer heavy – it often is, don’t know why. Maybe it’s because a fair few of their albums got released around this time of year: Divine Intervention, God Hates Us All and Repentless all came out in Septembers past, Seasons in the Abyss was October. Maybe it’s because my own Slayer initiation was at the start of uni when a second-year student did me a Reign/South tape and Slayer finally clicked. Either way, Slayer fits autumn. Something feels very right about having your cool-aired mornings soundtracked, sped up and brutalised by Repentless and the still insane, still wholly OTT God Hates Us All. Dave Lombardo kills, but so does Paul Bostaph.

Anyway, new stuff? Not got round to much in September, so this will have to do.

KING BUZZO – Gift of Sacrifice
Buzz Osbourne put out his second solo acoustic album late August. Wrapped around Trevor Dunn’s elegant upright bass, it charts Melvins ground – I swear Housing, Luxury, Energy hangs off half a Stoner Witch riff or something, haven’t worked it out yet – but draws different textures and is, at times, mournfully heavy. There are no drums. There is no electric guitar. If you like Melvins, and especially Melvins Lite’s Freak Puke, you’ll take to this. Gift of Sacrifice is pretty short (35 mins) and the last 2 tracks are less essential, but the rest is easily Buzz/Dunn cool enough to justify your time. How his first acoustic album, This Machine Kills Artists, compares, I don’t know. Never bothered with it. But this one channels Melvins’ odd-spook very nicely.

Elsewhere, Budos Band and similarobjects – Amon Tobin psyche with Squarepusher turbo squelch? – barf collider-scopic worldly trips.

And some very exciting new stuff for October:
Robert Plant – Digging Deep: Subterranea anthology, released Oct 3rd
Clipping – Visions of Bodies Being Burned, released Oct 23rd
Carcass – Despicable EP, released Oct 30th
Mr Bungle – The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo, released Oct 30th
David Bowie – Ouvrez le Chien (Live Dallas ’95), released Oct 30th

’til next time!

amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind

HALLOWEEN NOISE PATTONS

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GREETINGS, schlock pickers. Ready for some deranged voicework this All Hallows’ Eve? Good.

We’ve said it before but if Melvins are Halloween’s house band then super-colluder Mike Patton is surely one of its top MCs. From loverboy whispers and honeyed sweeteners to lullaby daymares, carnival histrionics and pure fucking gibberish, he does it all – and then some. Never more than a beat away from innocence or insanity, it’s this wanton skittery that makes him the rock-vocal equivalent of cinema’s most amoral psychos: the ones who do bad shit just because.

So, we’re digging the grave (yes) of his more rock-heavy oeuvre. If you’re short of time, hit When Good Dogs Do Bad Things first and fill the gaps later. 11 tracks, audio only, no videos except for our short sharp opening shot of… Will Smith?

Too right. Patton is the voice of his I Am Legend post-human nemesis.

FAITH NO MORE: SURPRISE! YOU’RE DEAD!
Could have chosen Zombie Eaters for the title alone, but no. For those of us snagged into FNM’s world by We Care A Lot, The Real Thing was our first exposure to the new guy and it takes just four tracks for him to go voco-loco on our No Faith ears. The start of a new era.

MELVINS: GI JOE
Boneyard beats in a street-smart bed. Non-maniacal menace. All in day’s work for a Melvins/Patton/Ipecac project.

DEAD CROSS: CHURCH OF THE MOTHERFUCKERS
It’d be easy to pick the Bauhaus cover from the Dead Cross debut but Bela Lugosi’s Dead is all over Halloween anyway, so let’s gather for a more visceral midnight mass instead.

FANTOMAS: DER GOLEM
A flawless, monstrous body of classic horror themes skewered and reassembled with grotesque results, The Director’s Cut is one of those albums that’s end-to-end fright-night perfect. It’s why their depraved Omen made our first playlist five years ago because it’s bound for the asylum on a brakeless hell-cart. Anything from this record could make the cut and this year, it’s Der Golem. Slow and Slayer heav-eee with Patton escalating the madness.

TOMAHAWK: WAR SONG
Pace breaker, mood changer, heavy atmos spirited up from the rituals and songs of the Native Americans, Tomahawk style.

PEEPING TOM: SUCKER
Light relief with this voyeuristic hip-pop project, but it still fits. Check the seductive call-and-response voicework, catchy as balls.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN: WHEN GOOD DOGS DO BAD THINGS
As if throwing your Salem’s Lot in with Slayer and Melvins wasn’t OTT enough, Patton threw his vocal pyros at this four-track EP back in 2002. Precision mathprogmentalism at its most possessed, Good Dogs is a frenzied attack whose first two minutes leave you savaged. After that, the lull a-bye-bye and slasher false end finale. Mike Patton’s finest six minutes? Maybe. Just load the EP and lose your senses in this one-off detonation of demented genius.

TOMAHAWK: WHEN THE STARS BEGIN TO FALL
Tomahawk goes sneakabout and throws in some theramin? Perfect. Duane Denison’s chords muster the tension, Patton blows and soars.

KAADA PATTTON: INVOCATION
Bacteria Cult is a better-named Kaada Patton record, but Romances gives us Invocation, a genteel creep that’s 60s sound-effect spectral and almost the ghost side of Fantomas – without the bloody metallic body parts.

FAITH NO MORE: MALPRACTICE
A twisted tale of christknowswhat, under-the-knife molestation? Jagged riffage and a symphonic pile-up that’s borderline cacophonous, Malpractice is another of Patton’s most out-there Faith No More moments. APPLAUSE??? Done like a slain beast.

MR BUNGLE: THE HOLY FILAMENT
It’s not their most avant or celebrated album – I guess Disco Volante is – but California packs some of Mr Bungle’s most potent moments and the score-ish Holy Filament is a mellow supernatural sliver of an ending to this year’s playlist. The first half sweats tension, the second half sweeps a falsetto from the afterlife.

Happy listening? We didn’t even mention perhaps THE most fitting Patton track of all, and that’s because it’s an album: Delirium Cordia by Fantomas (who else?). A score of fragments and wide-open spaces means that between the bursts of Patton garble, Lombardo assault, ghostly ambience and white noise, your mind has much room to roam about in – and if you’ve flicked the album’s artwork, those pristine surgery scenes (dislodged eyeball, intestinal wash) make you feel a wee bit queasy. And there’s no escape, because it’s a 75-minute track. You can’t skip anything. Trapped, imprisoned and captured till you hit the 20-minute vinyl run-out groove at the end. Music for voluntary confinement … keep the lights off if you dare.

For a less sombre listen with some mildly retro metal videos, check Hairy Halloween I and II from the last couple of years, or dabble in the gothic splendour of the late Saint Pete of Steele and Type O’s Sabbath slowdown. PUMPKINS OUT, over.

MARK LANEGAN LIVE + 2017 MOMENTS

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DECEMBER REWIND: MARK LANEGAN BAND PLAYS OXFORD, PLUS A 2017 REWIND

Gargoyle. When you see Mark Lanegan stand dead still on stage, face lived-in and unbreaking, you wonder if the name of the album is a knowing, unmoving nod to his stage self.

Then you cast the thought off. Lanegan does not come across as a guy who does send-up, not in public at least. Gargoyles survive centuries though, and Lanegan’s voice has the same survivor’s trait, but the man himself …. at times he looks like he might not get much beyond another day. He only moves from and to the mic when he has to get a drink, and does it slowly with a limp. Every time he moves, he grimaces. Definitely not the imposing moody bruiser you’ve imagined – no, he looks like a veteran fighter in semi-retirement, taking the stage with reluctance. To anyone who hasn’t seen him in person before – me – it’s a bit of a shock. Puts you at unease.

Is Lanegan’s voice diminished? No. Not a bit. It’s exactly what you know from the records – rich, lived-in, strong with weary edge, and he doesn’t falter or miss all night. Death’s Head Tattoo and Gravedigger give us an early rush before Shelley Brien takes co-vocals on Hit the City‘s highway cool. Nocturne pulls out those Euro-driven post-punk synth-pop stops, pulsing like Simple Minds’ Theme for Great Cities, and it’s these tracks, the ones that drive you through metropolitan nightscapes, that work the best. Riot in My House showcases Jeff Fielder’s liquid solos, and that guy is stellar, totally immersed in the songs – he’s into it, bodily into it, with creeper-hop moves and dapper hat that are more acid jazz moonlighter than rock supremo. Class act, as is the whole band. Methamphetamine Blues closes the set with clank ‘n’ growl, then the encore gets stripped to guitar and voice only. Brien joins for a closing Bombed.

It’s a great gig, but an odd-funny one too (and we’re not even going near support act Joe Cardamone’s Holy War filmwank). You could say that Lanegan’s voice doesn’t fit the higher energy rock that he now does, yet it totally works. You could also say that he doesn’t fit the trad rock set-up on stage – and you’d be right. And you would put cash on “Mark will be out in 15 minutes to sign any merchandise you have, he’d love to meet you” not being the last words of the set, but they are. A meet and greet with Mark Lanegan? Get the fork outta here.

But sure enough, he appears – walking slowly with a cane, joined by Shelley, and they take their seats at the merch stand. They sign stuff, they shake everyone’s hands, it’s a cool thing to see. Would they sign my ticket, please? Of course they would. Happy new year, guys.

LANEGAN TICKET

MOMENTS OF THE YEAR

We’re already drowning in end-of-year lists, but I’ll add a drop’s worth anyway. What’s the criteria? Music moments 2017 – pretty much new, a little of the old, simple as that. The big 2017 reviews shame us into seeing how far off the pulse we non-music-biz mortals really are, but they give us plenty of stuff to check as well: a last grab at being remotely current.

They also make us wonder what everyone sees in LCD Soundsystem. 

Again.

NOTHING IS DEFINITIVE. Let’s go.

KXM – Scatterbrain
Rapid-fire prog-pyro technics launch the second KXM album. So, who KXM again? Dug Pinnick (King’s X) + George Lynch (Lynch Mob/Dokken) + Ray Luzier (Korn). Many of Pinnick’s projects overlap his mother band’s sound, but KXM does push a bit further out because Lynch has a tone all his own, and Ray Luzier lays down some pristine metallic double-kick action, yet the bedrock of it all are those big stop-starter funk-heavy grooves. Check Panic Attack for an epic Lynchian solo over heavy-Beatles harmony. If you’re looking to fall back in love with guitar heroes and musos who serve the song, submit to KXM’s hard-rock mastery.

King’s X live in Bristol
Might as well get straight on to the other 2017 Pinnick high: King’s X live, in the UK. After a life-time’s fandom, seeing them for the first time was odds-on to be Gig of the Year, and it was. It still is. This is what it felt like. King’s X, we salute you.

Buzz and Dale
First it was Crystal Fairy who crunched our worlds with revitalised riffage, then Melvins took us on A Walk with Love and Death double header, with Death possibly the best Melvins album since Freak Puke and one that draws on Stag‘s vintage lurch without ever doing a retread. Dale Crover put a solo record out, too – haven’t heard it, one for next year, surely.

Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs
Chanced upon these raucous fuckbags back in January and pounced on one-track EP The Wizard and the Seven Swines. One of the best listens of the year. Debut album Feed the Rats landed in 2017, and though more hinged, it’s still a righteous slab of sludgy noisy drawn-out psyche.

Robert Plant – Carry Fire
Any Robert Plant record is a big deal, no matter how it turns out. Carry Fire isn’t the global psychedelic melt that we might expect from the Sensational Space Shifters – more wistful Welsh valley than charging Mali burn – and its restrained mood is at odds with Plant’s life-affirming interviews, so what gives? Once The May Queen has skipped past, side A keeps it slow and you’re straining for a kick, but after that – Carving Up The World Again onwards – it hits the Plant mark. Bones of Saints echoes Mighty Rearranger, Carry Fire conjures bazaars and street heat while Keep it Hid tiptoes a Space Shifter electronica shimmy. Given time, the slower tracks grow, but best of all is Heaven Sent at the record’s end – heavy, slow-droning surf, one of Plant’s darkest. Majesterial stuff as always, just a bit more hidden. Slow-releasing heat.

Dead Cross – Dead Cross
Old Kids on the Block? Yeah, but the joy of hearing Patton THIS animated and Lombardo THAT ferocious in a 28-minute ultrablast is hard to top.

Ministry – Rio Grande Blood
Jizzy Pearl played Wasted in America at the Bullingdon in 2017. Of course, it launched a Love/Hate listening phase, and that somehow led to a Ministry revival as well – you know what it’s like. Must have been a bands-of-92 thing. Anyway, Ministry. Don’t know how long you stuck with them, but I stopped buying after Houses of the Mole, not for any great reason other than the stacks of other new bands and sounds to grab hold of. Suddenly you’ve got a four-album Ministry deficit and the guitarist has died. Shit. What happens when you then get stuck in to Rio Grande Blood? It blows your head. Senor Peligro is ferocious, aggressive, surely one of the hardest tracks they’ve ever done. Cue immediate Ministry gap fill, and if you can stomach a bit of gross-out reading while you do the same, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen is it (get it on Kindle). Frank, funny and disgusting, it’s an unbelievable tale (literally, in the Robert Plant anecdote – Led Zeppelin in 1983, really???) where you can’t help but be charmed by Alien J. Lotta self deprecation, whole lotta self abuse, some horrible fucking stories. Get past the first few pages and you won’t stop.

Prince – Around the World in a Day
The Prince education continues, and this album … well, Tamborine and America. How hard is the funk on those tracks? ’nuff said. Staggering.

Chris Cornell 

We all know the story. We all know it doesn’t sit right, either. Going beyond Soundgarden, Carry On and Songbook have kept Cornell’s flame flickering this year, and the more you listen, the deeper that talent – and loss – goes.

Myrkur – Mareridt
Already referenced here as a winter soundtrack, Mareridt covers many more bases than Myrkur’s debut album M. It is less metal – much less – but more diverse, more coherent and more euphoric in an icy, nightmare folk kinda way. Ghosts of black metal. #2 in Metal Hammer’s 2017 review.

Wire live in Oxford
Chairs missing. Doors opening. (non) review right here.

Paradise Lost – Medusa
20 years after last picking up a Paradise Lost album (One Second), Medusa became an impulse buy. Don’t know why. Must have been the subliminal dark arts of the reviews and interviews, and it’s still too new to know well, but it’s got a mature, heavy crunch. Slow-moving and resolute, Medusa is grounded – exactly what we need in fast, unstable times. Just goth enough, feels like a stayer. Let’s see.

Kamasi Washington – Harmony of Difference
Mary Anne Hobbs and Stuart Maconie are all over Kamasi Washington on 6 Music, as are many others, but if you’re open to The Jazz yet rarely snagged, Washington’s triple disc debut The Epic would be way too much. Maybe he knows this. Maybe this is why he put out Harmony of Difference, a 32-minute 6-tracker (at EP price, bargainheads) that uses counterpoint theory – not something I know about, but Harmony is a rich, fullsome listen that might even beat a path to The Epic… one day.

What else for 2017?

Drore! 

Mastodon!!! But Emperor of Sand tops the Metal Hammer poll, so go read a proper write up over there instead.

Other 2017 stuff not yet managed: king crimson live in chicago – QOTSA – big|brave – motorpsycho – hannah peel – godflesh – mogwai – nine inch nails – gy!be – the bug vs earth – and so on anon anon anon…

HAPPY NEW YEAR, see you in 2018!

Hairy Halloween II

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A pumpkin-grin welcome to anyone who’s there, and this year’s handful of Halloweeny hitters is a straight follow-up to last year: another blast of old-school rock tracks, videos and vibes that fit the ‘ween thing, and like all slasher sequels, it’s probably not as good as the one before…

…OR IS IT??? Wait for the dark.

JOE SATRIANI: Big Bad Moon

What do you want from a Halloween vid? A dark, deserted street? Check. Full-moon menace? Yep. Amplifier being kicked down the stairs so a guitarist can solo the frig out of it? Errrrrrr no, but why the hell not??? Enter Big Bad Moon. Not only is the mood right, but you get an electro-shock Satch hair-ender that’s undead-worthy (low budget special effects version). Killer tune, killer solos.

TOOL: Stinkfist

Less blitzy than Satriani, but Stinkfist does anything but reek. Any number of Tool tunes could make a dark-side playlist, and this creepsome promo makes Tool a shoe-in. Check the Stinkfist sand people, watch ’em peel.

MR BUNGLE: Quote Unquote

Odd weird. Sinister weird. Which is what you expect from Mr Bungle, right? Soundtrack to a death circus. With masks.

JUDAS PRIEST: Turbo Lover

Sure, A Touch of Evil makes more sense on the surface, but we’re not going as deep as surface here – we’re going for the vibe, specifically the Terminator-as-argonaut retro stink flying off this hilariously shit video. Rocking tune, though.

DAVID BOWIE: Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)

A fair few Bowie tunes could land on a list like this, but if atmosphere and menace are on the menu instead of literal Scary Monsters, the predatory pre-Blackstar Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) jazz ensemble racks it up nice and noir.

VOIVOD: Astronomy Domine

Did anyone else find the Tribal Convictions video a bit creepy as a kid? No? OK, that’s embarrassing. Let’s have a disembodied Voivodian vocal in a flicker-flicker-flicker-bam Floyd cover with a video of a band on a rotating wheel instead. Better?

ALICE COOPER: Killers

The creep factor in this version of Is It My Body has nothing to do with Alice stage props and effects – it’s pre-Nightmare, but Cooper was a theatrical master even when his props were nothing more than a shiny onesie, a shoe and a pink leotard. Classic. But this video for Killer (live) is a wee bit more showtime, shall we say. If the noose fits…

SMASHING PUMPKINS: Ava Adore

Graced with gothic electronica, alt-rock’s very own Uncle Fester goes full Nosferatu in the video – check the Corgan choreography for some pretty slick Nosfer moves you’ll wanna steal.

CHRIS MORRIS: Jam (intro to episode 2)

Not music, but there is dancing. Morris dancing. Subversive, woozy and warped at every twist, Jam fits right in with any horror sesh, and Morris’s taunt-and-haunt free-dance flail in the face of a failed suicide is wrong enough to be oh-so-very right.

MELVINS/TOOL: Divorced

If ever there was a Halloween house band, Melvins would surely be it. Tool could do visuals, but there are no visuals here – get the headphones, kill the lights and sink deep into a 15-minute pit of top-grade Toolvins.

AC/DC: Night Prowler

A rat runs down the alley, and a chill runs down your spine…can there be a better lyric to end on? Pure slasher, a Bon ace over a deadly, bluesy groove.

But you can’t really have a halloween sequel without a farcical false ending, so … a heroic big-hair resurrection it is – check the big-budget cheapness in this Elm Street cornball. Who were those guys, Freddie? Eh? Lynch axe still cuts it, mind.

THE END! Off now, Salem’s Lot beckons.

MELVINS: Stag

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Houdini: the pinnacle of 90s Melvins … poke about the reviews and it always bags the biggest marks, topping many a most recommended pile – Houdini’s the one everyone seems to know about, it’s the one that’s got Kurt Cobain on it (a big deal at the time), and it’s the one that the band played in full for their Don’t Look Back gig in 2005, so maybe it’s me who’s missing some sort of point somewhere BUT … great though it is, Houdini* ain’t the album that best captures Melvins’ absurd beauty and ugly brilliance.

Stag is.

Melvins Stag CD

Stag: uncovered

Stag throws up EVERYTHING the Melvins are capable of, and that’s why it’s the place to get inside – or at least, get us non-Melvins yoomans somewhere close to – the scattershot strangeness/normalised weirdness pervading their inscrutable heads. Trippy, rocking, perverse, ambient, playful and all-out terrifying, Stag is wildly experimental without being tedious or pisstakingly relentless. Listen to Stag and every direction Melvins ever took starts to make sense, and this may be, paradoxically, because the album is less beholden to the Melvins’ key identifier till that point: the Buzz Riff. They’re in there, twistedly precise as ever, but to reach Melvins’ sustained heights of heavy quirk, you need more than riffs: you need imagination, freedom and fuck-you, and Stag is where all of that behind-the-eyes odderness explodes from the off.

First track The Bit is one of the best Melvins tracks ever, no question: sitar intro meets full-blown mother of a riff, it pounds you to the spot. It’s big – maybe bigger than any Melvins before it. Not because it’s longer or louder, but because it’s FULLER, and it’s this fullness that makes The Bit – and Stag – a mandatory Mel trip.

After a lysergic interlude (Hide) that’s rooted in Stoner Witch (Shevil), we crash on Bar-X-The Rocking-M, a reckless burst of trumpet (yes!!!) and turntable (???) shot through with Tool-esque hush n’ calm. Nothing like Yacob’s Lab – ambient – and The Bloat – stoner slider groover – that follow, and by now we know that, on Stag, anything goes. Every single one of the 16 tracks is unlike any other on the album**, so they are all highlights – here are a few, grouped into shitly-named (by me) categories.

Rock Hard Stag

AKA megawatt amplification and guitar Buzz. Buck Owens does freewheeling juggernaut clatter, Captain Pungent rocks the off beats into a seamless flow into Berthas, which burns a tight 70s 12-bar in your addled mey gratter, and remember we have The Bit and Bar-X front-loading the show. No shortage of rock hardy on Stag.

Quiet/Goof Stag

You want a minute and a half of bubbling liquid? That’s Soup. Lilting dreaminess? Black Bok. Back-porch railtrack blues? Cottonmouth. Chipmunks on a fuck-knows? Skin Horse. No, you couldn’t make it up … except, they did (but how?).

Ugly in the Morning Stag

You want a minute and a half of bubbling liquid? That’s Soup. OK, we just filed it as a quiet/goof job but the fact that it’s served up straight after Goggles curdles the appeal somewhat, and that’s coz Goggles IS fucking terrifying – slo-core noise by a serial killer’s house band, feat. Fudgetunnel’s Alex Newport on skin-peeling production. Says it all. Later on: Sterilized, a dank hellmare of pre-torture warm-up music, and Lacrimosa‘s slow Melv-o creep fest.

All of this experimentation means that Stag isn’t the album that most represents a Melvins sound – if such a thing exists – but it surely is the album that most represents THEM, as a band. Dale Crover makes the space to loom large – The Bloat, Tipping the Lion, Buck Owens – and the record points to any stage, phase or whim of the band’s career, like a Plus One companion for any Melvins album you’ll ever play.

The band got dropped by Atlantic after Stag, making it the last of their major-label years – some reward for such a kaleidoscopic splat of psychedelic greatness, eh? But it’s hard to imagine Melvins giving a brown one. 21 years later, most of them on Ipecac, they’re as prolific and uncompromising as ever, and the list of artists indebted to their stubborn genius is longer than ever. Me, I gotta thank Stag for a mind-opening induction to Melvins world and to what rock bands can do if they’ve got the vision. It’s a Lifer, this one.

Melvins without limits.

* Hooch, Night Goat, Honey Bucket, Teet et al are diamonds for sure, but there’s a reason why Houdini is the third favourite of the three Atlantic albums: Spread Eagle Beagle. Has anyone played Houdini and actually looked forward to hearing this nine-minute momentum bummer at the end, peterin’ out the album’s singular rock vibe? Surely no. Stoner Witch hangs together much better – Revolve and Roadbull, shitting HELL – and the syrupy ambience of Shevil hints at Stag’s many outer limits.

** Butthole Surfers’ Independent Worm Saloon is another oddballin’ major label beaut from that era. Musically more focused than what went before, Inde Worm Sal bends any number of styles into its 17 tracks. Produced by John Paul Jones, released 1993 on Capitol, always worth a revisit.

Stag: essential Melvins

Stag: essential Melvins

PIGS, OHHMS, FAIRIES AND BEER

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JANUARY REWIND: NEW HEAVIES FOR 2017

Been a busy month for new discoveries so excuse the gush of these short sharp first impressions but they’ve given January a bit of a jump start, y’ know? A frisson for the short freeze.

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGSthe-wizard-and-the-seven-swines

Pigs. One pigs is not enough (grammar violation overruled) for some people, which is how you end up with Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs as a band handle. Doesn’t look quite so bad when written down here, but when you’re scanning the DAB text scroll to catch the name of the band whose rough-arsed rollock has fully pricked your ears, it’s an infinite porker drag. What the fissing puck is all this pigs shit???

Worth the wait though, so it’s a big snouty thanks to Gideon Coe for playing whatever the track was in the first place, because without that introductory exposure to pigsx7, I’d have been forever deprived of The Wizard and the Seven Swines, their 22-minute one-tracker from 2013. Does Fugazi ire, Sleep heft and Thee Oh Sees scorch tease thy aggro-prog garage psyche cravings? Then check the Pigs, meet The Wizard and keep all ears peeled for new album  Feed the Rats.

HEAVY RESISTANCE: OHHMS

You know how some stuff, when you first hear it, is so massive and all-enveloping that it begs, nay commands, you to drop down for heavy duty worship to the Rok Godz?

OHHMS is that stuff. Long swollen subterranean Yob-bery that peddles a mainline in transcendent rifferolla, the Bloom/Cold EPs add up to a massive 60+ minutes for four just tracks – go for the total immersion entry point of The Anchor and see if you ain’t sold on Cold. New album on the way, and Jeezus HC only knows how The Cellar is gonna contain their oversized moltenalia when they hit Oxford on February 13th. CANNOT WAIT. Support comes from Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, by the way.

TWO MELS, A GENDER BENDER AND A MAN FROM MARS

Melvins have been obscenely collaborative in recent years, and now they’ve got another ID on the go though it’s not under the Melvins banner. Nope, the Buzz n Dale show have hooked it up with Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez Lopez and Teri Gender Bender to form Crystal Fairy, and if the album is anything like the tracks played by Henry Rollins on his Iggy Pop 6 Music sit-in then it’s gonna be tight like (a) Senile Animal. Album due out v soon on Ipecac.

ALCO POP: BEER-FUELLED DRUDENESS

The return! Of the former Lord Yatesbury! Yep, Julian Cope is BACK with a new album: Drunken Songs, a record celebrating Cope’s official embarkation on a Beer Trip that was launched in Armenia a few years back. W-anchored at the back by an oversized Road to Tralee and inspired in part by the funeral song that Cope wrote for himself – As the Beer Flows Over Me, first appearing on Psychedelic Revolution but rerecorded here – Drunken Songs finds the Drude in light mood musically, all mellotron-ic melody and Black Sheep-ish acoustica. He’s on tour as well so don’t miss this highly focused rambling, man – see you in Cardiff for that one.

ADAMS UN-AMPED

Finally, Do you still love me? by Ryan Adams – ace acoustic-only tuneage, nailing that gentle downer vibe.

’til next time!