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The Melvins: The bride screamed murder
19/01/11 || The Duff
The Melvins are purveyors of the following genres and sub-genres: metal, sludge metal, rock, grunge, drone, grindcore, grind/death and post-rock. A couple of them are for jokes, I want to share the happiness I wake up to EVERY morning with you and your coffee, but dear reader you should also know that they are without doubt one of the greatest bands on this planet (here are my favourite bands in order: 1) my dick 2) your face 3) THE END), most underrated to boot and, despite being so unbelievably mind-bogglingly awesome, with the most cock-to-face and ridiculously uncanny ability (hey K, can we have this font size set to ONE BILLION plz? ‘K, thanks) to ruin their otherwise perfect albums with bizarreness supreme, irritating beyond your wildest nightmares.
“The Bride Screamed Murder”, less genre-defining than its earliest records (making me question lyrics like “We started/But now we’re running“), is the band’s twentieth studio effort, third output teamed up with duo-band Big Business (I’ve researched this from Amazon reviews and Wikipedia, I don’t know it for fact), and follows suit with the band’s checkered past – thankfully, the intrusions aren’t so much a la “Stag” anal-rape with Tabasco sauce for lube but rather of a diminished, “Stoner Witch” variety, and we all know how much of a gem that album is. The band doesn’t seem to do it for music’s sake, but rather to grind into your nerves that are impatiently twitching for the fulfilling groove Sabbath goodness the band is so proficient at dishing out.
Following a short, quite typical-to-the-band riff, our first introduction to the album is such superfluous bullshit, a cheerleader chant that uses about as many rile-up phrases imaginable for “And now here’s the motherfucken riff!”, but nothing comes; my hopes are dashed for the fear they haven’t grown for the better since an inconsistent “Stag”. Then we’re hit with “Evil New War God”, solid ground; little cause for concern, because this material is strong, head-banging no-nonsense with some off-kilter groove combined with the ingenious flare of King Buzzo’s catchy, emotional and gruff/slightly maddened vocals – then, we’re hit with a cheesy-horror film/doom meandering, and I’m left wanting to make sweet love to every braincell belonging to the band.
The rest is fine fashion, although we rarely revisit such metal-heights as witnessed on the second track (“Inhumanity and Death” being the exception); lighter-styled Sabbath mixed with anthem-rock/punk/sludge and a regular brew of bizarreness, even the most eccentric elements make the tracks soar in true The Melvins awesome (alto vocals of “I’ll Finish You Off” spring to mind), making them once more like the best friend you never had, batshit insane, loyal and reliably comforting with a real grounded grasp on life. Once more, they depart leaving you think they’re saving half their kickass for the next album – always leaving you wanting.
It’s not all flowers, rainbows and endless, free-of-responsibility sex, though – as mentioned, the odd band trend to ruin great music does rear its head if only on the seldom occasion. I’ve read a review state “PGx3” as one of the highlights, leaving me scratch my head as it is very sparse and quite anticlimactic; also, despite a pretty cool Neurosis-y ending, the cover of The Who’s “My Generation” is absurd as it is pointless – like Children of Bodom’s cover of Britney Spears, you can identify the lyrics, but nothing else renders the cover any more worthwhile other than the inanity of the band’s take of a popular song: a slow-down rendition of an energetic classic with shitty riffs.
I’ll leave you with a quote from racketmag.com that I find to be quite pertinent:
“At least, I hope they’re immortal because a world without the Melvins is a world I would prefer to leave behind in a space-ship just to watch it explode.“
This album makes me smile deep despite its flaws, The Melvins still making life a bright, hopeful, joyous place for their realistic, antagonistic views and kickass music.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Ipecac
- Website: www.themelvins.net
- Band
- King Buzzo: guitars, vocals
- Dale Crover: drums, vocals
- Jared Warren: bass, vocals
- Coady Willis: drums, vocals
- Tracklist
- 01. The Water Glass
- 02. Evil New War God
- 03. Pig House
- 04. I’ll Finish You Off
- 05. Electric Flower
- 06. Hospital Up
- 07. Inhumanity and Death
- 08. My Generation
- 09. P.G. x 3
