Melvins
The Maggot

The Melvins are tireless.

They travel far and wide through the recesses of their empty skull and always find amusing things that they then communicate to the world. Sometimes they find something weird-weird ("Honky"), other times they find demented things ("Stag"), and other times, every twenty years or so, even drinkable things ("A Senile Animal").

This, "The Maggot," part of the trilogy that includes "The Bootlicker" and "The Crybaby," printed in 99 for Mike Patton's Ipecac, is an anthem to arrogance and to riffs played with free burp, a symbol of the proud musical flashiness that the Melvins display carelessly.

It starts with the flames of "amazon", the small one, which jumps on your shins and in no time is on your face. "AMAZON", the big one, is one of those usual Melvins' brand panzer that crushes you to the ground, this time with almost industrial rhythms. "We All Love JUDY" is the classic Melvins riff that makes you nod your head up and down beautifully (try it to believe it). "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)", a Fleetwood Mac cover, is martial, so martial it feels like being in church because of the reverence it inspires. The last one, "See How Pretty, See How Smart", is a latest model tank that takes you to see strange things, a sort of trance due to the sadistic repetition of the same slow and drawn-out riff... in short, a Melvins classic.

So, once again, they didn't manage to make a bad album. When will these Blues Brothers of rock, chubby and long-haired, testify to the world that they are human? When will the tricks end? In doubt, every night I kiss the photo of Buzz that I have taped above my bed's headboard to give them thanks.