Earlier today, Ipecac posted ‘#tbt to our first Melvins release, The Maggot, while we get ready for our 30th Melvins release, Tarantula Heart. #Ipecac25’. Ipecac have been going since 1999, meaning they’ve been putting out more than one Melvins record a tear for the entirety of their quarter-century existence. Add to that the fact Melvins have been going since ’83 and you really get a sense of not only their catalogue, but their staggering longevity.
How does a band keep going that long? They’ve had a fair few lineup changes over the course of their epic career, and certainly, mixing things up has been a key to their sustained output. I will be the first to admit that I haven’t loved everything they’ve done, but have infinite respect for everything they’ve done because they have continually tried out different stuff, they’ve tested themselves – and with releases like ‘Prick’ and the ‘Cowboy’ single, they’ve tested their fans, too. And that’s good and healthy: art should always be open to experiment, regardless of success, regardless of whether it pleases anyone, even the artist.
The pitch for their latest album is that “‘Tarantula Heart’ is like nothing the band has ever done before. Probably the best record they’ve ever recorded. Certainly one of their weirdest.” For a start, it contains just five tracks – but then, the first is 19 minutes long, an absolutely colossal droning sludge noise workout.
You’d have to go way, way back to ‘Bullhead’ to find anything comparable. Their 1990 release, which opens with the eight-and-a-half-minute heavy psych sludge monster ‘Boris’ (from which the legendary Japanese amplifier worshippers took their name as well as substantial inspiration), marked a shift toward megalithic drone, with songs played so slow that even the short ones sounded really, really long.
‘Pain Equals Funny’ simply is really, really long – practically an album in its own right, even, and it’s a slow-building stoner stroll built around a drifting screed of feedback that fades to a thumping rifest. But where it’s different s that ‘Pain Equals Funny’ is in fact really rather musical, with tuneful vocals, clean, plain, and audible in the mix atop the twisting guitarwork. In places, it sounds more like Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam than Melvins. But then it twists and mutates and there are some really hefty segments that really just pound the overdrive and trudge through some overloading riffage. There are scratchy, sparse instrumental passages and wild trippy solo breaks, too. It’s difficult to keep a handle on what the fuck is going on in this sprawling, staggering musical morass. Each segment feels like a song in its own right, and any other band would have separated them out and made a tidy five-track EP with the material. But this is Melvins: they don’t do tidy, and Ipecac aren’t a label to dictate a remodelling, especially not when it comes to Melvins.
‘Working the Ditch’ is one of those songs that seems to be an eternal intro / outro, but wields some heavy riffage while it decides what it’s doing, and then Buzzo brings some classically mangles vocals to proceedings. And it’s heavy. With all of their joshing, their covers albums, their daft shit, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Melvins are a proper heavy band. Being heavy doesn’t have to be serious, after all. This is why Melvins occupy their own unique space: they’re jokey, irreverent, but also serious and heavy, sometimes all in the space not of a single album but a single song.
‘She’s Got Weird Arms’ is as flippant and throwaway and daft as it sounds, with discordant tones and wibbling discord all over a silly pop tune Trevor Horn might have cooked up. Heavy, wonky, silly… unusual adjectives, but entirely appropriate here, and then there’s the rabid thrash blast of single release ‘Allergic to Food’. It’s a rabid, frothing-as-the-mouth sonic blitzkrieg, and quintessential Melvins, but also frenzied blast of dirty, manic guitar noise. They don’t ease off for the last of the five tracks, either: ‘Smiler’ is an eye-popping beast which sees the band go to town with the loud/quiet dynamic thing while also packing in some real dense meat.
Melvins never cease to surprise, and the biggest surprise is that – incredibly, especially give their experience and catalogue – Melvins have delivered their strongest, most Melvins set in ages. They may have been oft-emulated and inspired and influenced countless acts, but Melvins continue to whatever they like – and this is why we love them...
