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1998. King Buzzo must have worn out "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn." A few years earlier, he discovered the pleasures of electronic music.
1999: "The Bootlicker." What can we expect from three madmen, who just sixteen years earlier began their process of revolution/revision of a certain type of music, and decide to put their "new" influences and psychedelic tendencies on record? A masterpiece. "The Bootlicker" is essentially this. Their magnum opus of the Ipecac era. A bible from which the Melvins themselves would rarely draw.
Press "play" and you are greeted by a King Buzzo you don't expect. Clean guitars, martial rhythms and pure psychedelia. A rollercoaster ride inaugurated by the brief litany of "Toy" and concluded by the hallucinated and (then) dreamy "Prig." In between, deliriums of feedback, homely, uncanny sounds, and much madness. And let's not be surprised if "Black Santa" pays homage to certain (psycho)industrial atmospheres or if "Jew Boy Flower Head" seems like the acid-addled cousin of "Goose Freight Train." The power of the Melvins is the deconstruction of musical boundaries (read: labels, genres) and with this album, they prove they do it better than anyone else. This is the polaroid of their 1999. But who can imagine what they will become next?
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