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Rating: Being an "aficionados" of the site, I always take a look at the Melvins section to see if some brave soul has taken it upon themselves to update the endless discography of these geniuses of grunge (or sludge, you choose).
Many times I've thought: "damn, but 'Stag' still nothing?", so, hoping not to piss anyone off, I’m writing this review... to distract myself a bit. This (yet another) "little gem" is dated 1996, and it's the third released under Atlantic Records (after "Stoner Witch" and "Houdini").
Wanting to make a sort of comparison with the latter, let's say that "Stag" maintains the usual and pleasant "heaviness" at its core (and agreeable "pounding" included). This time, however, our guys create a sort of deliberate and sought-after "sonic mess", after the aforementioned major had imposed something more "commercial" on them (which makes me chuckle).
The album opens with "The bit", one of the band's most famous tracks, with its "oriental" start and King Buzzo's punishing riff setting the pace. From this moment onwards, you'll continue through mood swings, dangerous ups and downs, and massacres in the background. The sonic "carousel" proceeds with "Bar-X-The Rocking Man", an heavy-scratch piece, where the band even blows their trumpets, and then moves on to the hopeful riff of "The Bloat", torn apart by the killer Buzzo-bass duo (as if to say: "we were just kidding..."). "Tipping the lion" and "Black Block" are two lighthearted songs, the first with anthology-worthy blues breaks and a soft-noise pace (except for the restless finale); the second is decidedly syrupy and pop-like (obviously not to be taken too seriously). I say "obviously", because it's the very "Googles" that makes you understand it. A big doom hit recorded in a torture chamber (where, by the way, they also try to slaughter someone). In "Soup", our guys fill demijohns of who knows what in Buzzo's cellar. We don’t even have the time to try to guess when they (re)start at a wickedly fast pace with "Buck Owens", basically the riff from "Revolve" (featured in "Stoner Witch"), "shot" this time at 220 km/h, a bass that leaves no room for comments, with attached kick-in-the-face galore.
With "Sterilized", we return to the mangled room, where we can also hear the wails of someone (but this time more distant). In the following "Lacrimosa", King Buzzo, Sir Dale Crover, and the excellent Mark Deutrom (bassist of the moment, also producer of Ozma) do nothing but revel in the slaughter previously well executed and celebrate it with rather massive firecrackers that explode with some regularity. A huge smile will (re)return to your face as you listen to "Skin Horse", splendid in its pop-rock beginning, culminating in the sweetest sound of a music box with a metallic little voice that has never been so spot on (or are you Carolina, the one singing?).
The album closes with the mini-suite "Captain Pungent"- "Cottonmouth", the first very hard-rock; the second very punk-rock in a mild manner (then don't come telling me they almost sound the same). The "filling" tracks I haven't mentioned will only serve to give you time to predict what might happen "next"; after all, what happens "next", I hope I've summarized it well for you in this review.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Bar-X-The Rocking M (02:22)
Big slide across bitter by hiding hold a hail
Sit down and hold this town infever
This mind is most of all like a vulture on a nail
And now he knows distorting feeler hell
this time he knows distorting
Be now the first of all by the low end on avoid
It's a pig in's an eye it's a soul it's a seether
Big eye and hold it all by the riding on a head
Dig down in the voice dic-storting feeler hell
Chicks hid the most dic-storting
05 The Bloat (03:40)
I ain't nothing to the notice
800 miles of prime
We be plain Jack belt loaded-Ha!
I pause, I holler
Still powder line
Selling bulge egg tourniquette-Ha!
The more you know the brain
The more it homocide
Belt strip telephone-Ha!
Give me 46
Give me 45
Can't place down dance stone -Ha!
06 Tipping the Lion (03:45)
Follow lead point to my head
We got Dresden solid dead
I ain't gonna stand leaking from my hand
Don't like the front of me on a mand
Be still the messagly
Distending a modern tale
By phone line
Might have seen
On read by rhyme
The violence stirke and spare
Seems fortified down square
What is the quality reaching low fo side
My tears intendedly bonified
You still motor high
Reach sending a modern tease
Right phone line
High voice tone
Forty lee and four a why
10 Buck Owens (03:09)
See the faulty now
See the dawn
See clear
Five six it's gonna be narrow
By written law
For right of hollow form
By thy all night
Figure five fourteen motorized
She wants the price
Much play in wise paradise
Each time you raise the wire
On fire for me
My plane is happily
Gotta show gotta leave
Which indeed I'd like to
He's afforded final ten
Every damn one been done
Pick the part of me to fun around
Diggie forty Bodie innie
Master come un by gun
Last choice last chance chance
Peace time for the stonified
I can't stand the high design
Give me one of those whys to write
14 Captain Pungent (02:19)
Daylight time of ten feel of a monster
Right here the wilds grow we ain't go a foot hold
Be nice afraid the future to be in now
Neck ties fir survive rest to be only forty nine
B-rown body sez pull in full red
Light so protect and demand but I it ride
Be damned gonna lie here all a land lone
Next size lotus alive rest to be only forty nine
16 Cottonmouth (01:55)
Mean little stealer you Got your head bowed down I got a mouth full of cotton Duct taped down I've been drinking too much lysol and my heads bowed too
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