OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'Melvins'
'Hold It In'   

-  Album: 'Hold It In' -  Label: 'Ipecac'
-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '13th October 2014'

Our Rating:
They’ve certainly progressed a long way from the grinding trudge of their early releases, and while they’ve also moved away from the wild experimentalism of albums like ‘Prick’, ‘Honky’ and ‘Pigs of the Roman Empire’, their collaboration with Lustmord, they’re still more than capable of springing surprises, as their covers album ‘Everybody Loves Sausages’ demonstrated.

‘Hold it In’ sees Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover joined by Butthole Surfers’ guitarist Paul Leary and bass player JD Pinkus, and is a very different kind of Melvins album.

An overloading guitar chug perforates the speakers on the heavy riffin’ opener, ‘Bride of Crankenstien’, and if it sounds like it’s going to be business as usual, the skyward pop of ‘You Can Make Me Wait’ swiftly dispels any such ideas: incorporating elements of classic rock, surf and ELO-style breeziness, it’s a lovely tune that sounds nothing like Melvins.

The Pixies-esque ‘Brass Cupcake’ is a piece of playful grunge pop par excellence
Of course, there are still weirdy experimental bits here and there: the backwards guitars all over the start of ‘Barcelonian Horseshoe Pit’ is equal parts Melvins and Buttholes, and makes perfect sense of the players’ coming together. And as for the 12-minute closer, ‘House of Gasoline’...

Elsewhere, poor taste and bad puns proliferate: ‘Sesame Street Meat’ and ‘Piss Pisstoferson’, for example, show they haven’t lost their whacky sense of humour. The glammy rock ‘n’ roll boogie of ‘Eyes on You’ packs groove and yet more surprises. There are still track that could only be Melvins tracks – of course there are – ‘Onions Make the Milk Taste Bad’ and the aforementioned ‘Sesame Street Meat’ bring the big guitars and a bass sound that’s little short of earth shattering. The drum frenzy of ‘Nine Yards’ lifts an otherwise so-so track up several notches.

They land somewhere between Led Zep and heavy prog on ‘The Bunk Up’ and while it may not be their most consistent album, it is perhaps their most varied. And such, it’ an album that demonstrates they are certainly consistent in their quest to challenge themselves and their fans with every release. This is precisely why Melvins fans – myself included – love Melvins, and why they’re so widely respective and admired: to produce an album as far from what could be considered their comfort zone, to so clearly be revelling in the spirit of doing something different, while also producing an album as good as this after 31 years as a band is nothing short of incredible.
  author: Christopher Nosnibor

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



Melvins - Hold It In