Melvins
Hostile Ambient Takeover

THE REVIEW

When the Melvins decide to make music there's no competition. Too advanced for their grunge clones... everything that is ugly, dirty, and infinitely evil you can think of in music essentially can be traced back to them.

The subsonic shocks and devilishly seventies riffs of Sir Buzzo, the epileptic clubbing of Mr. Crover, make this ensemble considered in the rock scene, as one of the most terrifying ever created.

The 90s have also passed for them, in the wake of grand albums like "Houdini", "Stoner Witch" and "Honky"... albums that would have made any other band in the scene's fortune. But not them. They returned, always faithful to themselves. What I'm bringing to your attention is surely one of the band's last great works, “Hostile Ambient Takeover” is listenable from start to finish... transitioning from the initial and wild outburst of the duo “Black Stooges/(Untitled Track)” to the garage-punk nuances of “Dr. Geek”, from the contained tribalities corrupted by experimental noise barrages of “The Fool, The Meddling Idiot” (truly surprising in its tank-like progression) and “Little Judas Congo”, to the raw violence of “The Brain Center At Whipples”, to the post-industrial experimentalism of “Foaming” and “The Anti-Vermin Seed”, the latter interminable, 15’51’’ of complete paranoia crossed by the vampiric singing of Buzzo under tons of decibels.

Great album, truly beautiful, this along with their collaboration with 'Lustmord' in 2004, in my personal opinion, is their best work since they returned under Ipecac, give it a listen it might conquer you too.