Melvins
The Bride Screamed Murder

Premise

The Melvins are something too big and too advanced for this planet and its inhabitants. Something too hallucinatory and destabilizing for our small human minds, so schematic and simplifying
Just read the various reviews of this new album, some cleverly avoid doing it altogether, and then there are the various two-bit music critics who strive to compress them into some pre-constructed phrase or cliché that fills the lines, so that they don't have to make an effort to listen to them again once labeled and don't have to exhaust themselves any further just to understand the greatness of Dale Crover and his drums.

And then they go on saying they're grunge, that they're just grunge, making comparisons with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and their latest albums. Or the classic anecdote of Cobain as their admirer, regurgitated by the lazy pseudo-intellectuals of music to justify absurd phrases like "they make the same music as the Nirvana but we all prefer Nevermind." Demented.

How many times has it been said: "Cobain produced Houdini and played guitar on Sky Pup." This phrase is proof of what I'm telling you, those who say it are the kind of narrow-minded folks who talk about music and write reviews without ever having listened to anything. You, on the other hand, who are reading, without prejudice and intellectually honest, can you hear a guitar in Sky Pup (in the album Houdini)?
Even King Buzzo has made it clear that they had to kick Cobain out of the studio because he was just wasting time. The name of the prestigious fan in the credits was only intended to show how people's conception and interest change for something so trivial.
Yes, but they're from Aberdeen!!! The same city as Kurt!!
Yes, but they've been living in San Francisco since '88 precisely because they couldn't stand the too much attention about to be given to Seattle, not wanting to find themselves in the spotlight that was soon to emerge.

The album

The third episode with Big Business (a daring bass and drum duo from Seattle). So, if there is a comparison to be made, it's with the previous 2 records. Veered away from A Senile Animal, an evolution in a more experimental and strange direction from Nude With Boots.
Let's talk about the beginning.
Thunderous and disarming riff in true Melvins fashion, with an indecipherable rhythm that crumples on itself and unfolds suddenly. Something that in music only they know how to do and do. The trademark. The drums (Coady and His Holiness Dale) join in their absurd way to the musical design that is forming. A noisy orchestra that shatters any resistance. The Water Glass.
Psychedelic noise crescendo and then STOP!
An unexpected handbrake, tribal rhythms start with the two drummers intersecting and complementing each other as they have already experimented for 2 albums. 1...2   1...2...3...4!!!
The Water Glass transforms into a military march in Full Metal Jacket style. And rightly so, it starts a call and response between Buzz and the three recruits of this improvised and entertaining tribute to Rock n Roll. Buzz had in mind to do something of the sort but wanted to be the first to record it in music.

Then it's the moment of Evil New War God, a disarming and overwhelming track. Their steamroller. One of those pieces that make you understand that Rock is not dead at all if you know where to look, and that originality still exists. But with drumming like this, they can be original even on their 50th album (I deliberately don't say rhythmic base because those who know the genius of Dale Crover know that he can play real melodies made of accents, ghost notes, flurries of fills that replace the classic hi-hat-bass-snare rhythmic pattern. Mad and unique, and now that he has a colleague to play in unison and cross with, the sound effect is even more astonishing.) As Coady Willis (the other drummer) says: "don't try to keep count, in fact, you must forget it otherwise you'll go crazy," referring to the structures and "composed" times they perform, which are easier to control and understand by following the melody rather than a misleading count.

Evil New War God has a second part so exhilarating it gives you chills with shifted chords and dynamics that surely recall Jazz more than Rock, but played with the Fuzz Bass distortion that King Buzzo has always favored. By the way, forget about the song structure: verse-chorus-verse-bridge, etc... the Melvins are post, they are ahead, and don't make choruses or other creations and simplifications of commercial music).
Ends with unpredictable and alternating drum solos.

The third track Pig House has a first part that builds around a 6/8 incisive riff that gets lodged in the brain, but every time you think you've grasped it, it unfolds into sonic rays only to return enclosed in itself. Finale in a heart-pounding crescendo, "We started But now we're ready!!!" shouted by all the members, it feels like being in the middle of a battlefield. Perfect solo by King Buzzo that maintains the intact and throbbing atmosphere. Finale in Morricone style, a sort of Indian chant emerges on the concluding notes, heading home. Truce. This is just the beginning. Curious now? The general concealment and boycott no longer take hold, or never did...

I'll finish you off is musical saturation that brings to mind that monument of Lysol. But certainly less hostile because it doesn't aim to be a musicological experiment. In fact, the almost hymn-like singing is very catchy once understood, that is after a few listens. In any case, the sonic fabric created is dense. Here I can allow you a more encyclopedic name because especially towards the end, the song becomes Doom, and the Melvins, being among the pioneers, know perfectly how to do it well.

Electric Flower was ready since the last tour/album as Buzz himself says. The initial hypnotic scales remind me of another important peculiarity. It's the first album of the Melvins in which Buzz doesn't use his inseparable Gibson Les Paul but has switched to a customized and entirely aluminum Electric Guitar. What does it imply for the sound?
It takes on sharper, less full-bodied tones that indeed evoke aluminum. Consequently, Jared Warren's bass emerges incredibly powerful and prominent. This is certainly the song that will stick in your mind after the first listen.

Hospital Up is pure sonic ecstasy, sweet and alluring but at the same time psychedelic (atmosphere reminiscent of Bootlicker, the album completely devoid of distortion but among the most hypnotic and strange of all). Feverish free jazz segment that connects us with Inhumanity and Death, sung (or rather shouted) by the two drummers, it’s the hardest and fastest track. It reminds one of that disruptive avalanche that is The Maggot of 1999.

My Generation. Is it really that one, you will say? Well, yes and no. In interviews, Buzz is used to attacking Crover when the latter says it's a cover of the Who: "Son of a gun!!! You told me it was yours!!!"
Anyway, the reinterpretation is undoubtedly very engaging, the bass is a show to hear, and the shouting voices capture and tear a smile of agreement and approval.

The album closes with PG x3, which it turns out was inspired by the film The Proposition (script by Nick Cave). There’s always an expectation for a quasi-nonsensical experimental finale from the Melvins. A group that released as a live album Colossus of Destiny which is all made of samplers and experimentation. Fun fact: the child's voice heard at the end is Dale Crover's daughter.

Surely a very diverse album that indeed eludes any classification. In my opinion, within the last trilogy, A Senile Animal still stands out overall for its greater cohesion though I challenge you to find an album of this level in 2010. Beautiful, unconventional, original, unique, free, independent, crazy, strong. Simply Melvins.