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Rating: The rock historiography tells us that the Melvins chose their band name in honor of an unfortunate Christmas tree thief from Aberdeen, named Melvin. This anecdote somewhat signifies the cultural void and the terrifying economic recession that gripped the American North West in the '80s, a factor that played a crucial role in shaping the phenomenal expressiveness of the Seattle scene.
In that scene, the Melvins were fundamentally associated due to their well-known connections with their former roadie and fellow citizen Kurt Cobain. Their way of reclaiming Black Sabbath, Flipper, and even Kiss in an obsessive minimal-metal mix was so filthy and deadly, despite significant quality swings between albums, that it extended its influence far beyond the creative death of grunge, inspiring a plethora of bands, from Boris to Sunn O))), up to a certain stoner scene.
"Lysol" is the last album before the major debut of King Buzzo and Dale Crover’s band: how they then hoped to make money from it remains a mystery, but at least there’s a happy realization that one of "Nevermind"'s benefits was the visibility given to the best underground offerings. The Lysol alluded to in the title is a specific and poisonous disinfectant, almost a way for a sick mind like King Buzzo’s to seal the excruciating wounds inflicted by his twisted, convoluted, and intricately spiraling guitar riffs on the carcass of metal, while his worthy counterpart Crover systematically alternates between leaden tom rumbles and double bass drum rolls.
The music remains almost always difficult to listen to, starting with the opener "Hung Bunny", eleven minutes of anti-matter where heaviness and grace are inextricably linked. And the rest is no less: terrifying clumps of monstrosity in a state of agony, yet at the same time fearsomely alive. The musical equivalent of a Francis Bacon painting, in other words: an explosion of cerebral bodies with slow-motion cadences inside a cage of terror, loneliness, and suffering, brushing against a sui generis doom, distorted by the tortuous and slowed use of feedback, as in the exhausting "With teeth", to the Flipper spun in the electric stasis of "Sacrifice". It seems incredible, but this funeral parade of extremist noise spawned by a bunch of drunk and ignorant losers was indeed perfect for building one of the most fascinating nightmares at the beginning of the Nineties.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Hung Bunny (10:42)
Lysol to get me high
You're sure to smell my fear
Baby you can see-saw sun
And like to be
She once like animal
I can walk but be so free
She walks in like menopause
But I can walk like them
She looks like a well-worn one
I can be one by one look a little word
Half of you can get so sore
I go too well by feel
It's sure to get you there
I'm fade to see
She once like animal
I can walk but be so free
She walks in like menopause
But I can walk like them
She looks like a well-worn one
I can be one by one look a little word
I could've felt no woman like you
Under the well warm dish just fine
I could've felt no woman like you
Under the well warm dish you're fine now
03 Sacrifice (06:07)
Can you hear the war cry?
It's time to enlist
The people speak as one
The cattle, the crowd
Those too afraid to live
Demand a sacrifice
Of your life
Can you smell their stinking breath?
Listen to them
Wheezing and gasping and
Chanting their slogans
It's a grave digger's song
Praising God & State
So the Nation will live
So we all can remain as cattle
[extra lyrics from Flipper's version]:
Can you smell the fresh blood
Steaming into the soil?
As our patriots,
Fathers, mothers and lovers
Admire the military style
Praising God and the State
Crying tears of pride
For all the fools slaughtered
For the maimed, the dying
And the dead
So the Nation will live
So the people will remain as cattle
06 With Teeth (02:25)
You've got the part that's living now
It's a tiny bit nasty
But it's a part now just the same
Have you the time to make it right?
Lord knows I'm gonna let it fly
I know it's not very evil
But you've just got to learn to let it go
Sometimes when the heart beats wide
You can take it on the doves
Like siz the well known water
Like siz the well known war
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By paolofreddie
The work exceeds the highest expectations, hence the need to write about it.
Lysol ranks among the most brilliant musical creations, as oxymoronic as it may sound, not just of the Nineties, but of the whole history of what is considered 'popular' art.
