Review: The Melvins

The Melvins
“26 Songs”
(Ipecac)

I was hanging out with a couple of Friends and we were listening to The Melvins album “Bull Head.”  One of my friends said, “I don’t know what the fuck you two see in these guys.”

My other friend responded, “They’re loud; they’re heavy, that’s what the fuck.”

That is indeed, what the fuck, my friends.

“26 Songs” is a reissue of The Melvins’ 1986 release “10 Songs.”  That means these songs are about seventeen years old and finds The Melvins knee deep in some of their most under-produced sludgy songs ever.  As you might guess, there are sixteen more songs on this than when originally issued.  The majority of the other tracks are alternate recordings or maybe simply alternate takes from the recording session.  There are some songs, however, that are new to the release like “Operation Blessing,” a fast, short, pummeling blast of punk uncharacteristic of The Melvins.

The core ten songs were recorded live in the studio straight to two tracks and typically sound better than all the bonus tracks which have a brutal over blown (make your speakers fart) drum sound and a fair share of pops and clicks, but this is history here and for The Melvins faithful who want every last bit of gooey Melvins’ history that they can suck up.  The album ends with several minutes of drug-induced rambling, supposedly rambled by a famous fellow Seattle musician while strung out on dust.  In the background somebody operates a weed whacker.  Eventually they break into song.