Formed in Montesano, Washington in 1983, the Melvins are a band so far ahead of the curve that time is only just catching up. With an uncanny knack of combining hardcore punk with Sabbath-style riffs, the band were instrumental in influencing grunge and alternative metal, and helped revive the stoner and doom metal genres too. However, as with most pioneers they got usurped by those who followed and refined their sound for mass consumption, yet the Melvins have deftly avoiding the trappings of success, and the band have a longevity of which their peers can only dream. Album number 27 (I believe) Tarantula Heart finds them continuing to forge forwards and is an abject lesson in doom metal that’s sure to attract new and old fans alike.
For this album the Melvins have switched things up and adopted a new way of working; this is an album born from jam sessions and improvisation, and the result is a record that packs a serious punch. Featuring the talents of drummer Roy Mayorga (Ministry, Soulfly, Stone Sour), Tarantula Heart is derived from his tempos and fills, and alongside long-time skin beater Dale Crover the dual drum parts make this a very rhythmic, tribal affair. Like a strange piece of New Orleans voodoo that’s beating an occult tattoo, opening track ‘Pain Equals Funny’ is a monolithic beast that stomps like an angry Golem. Clocking in at a cool nineteen-minutes, it’s a song of two suites that’s progressive in structure as it shape shifts between the crushingly heavy first half and the more esoteric (but no more weighty) second. It’s the musical equivalent of having your skull cracked by a ten-ton hammer (but in the best possible way, of course) and leaves the listener concussed and confused at its conclusion.
Such is the power of the Melvins’ attack that it is only the gaps between songs that offer any respite. The band are at the coal face of doom metal and are fashioning huge, hulking structures from granite and ‘Working The Ditch’ finds shards flying in all directions. With the exception of Godflesh (and maybe Swans), no other band has made made music sound simultaneously huge and oppressive. It’s an angry, leaden sky that threatens to unleash its fury at any moment and also the weight of an entire ocean bearing down on a tiny being. Yet, this being the Melvins you should always expected the unexpected, and a curveball arrives in the shape of the spiky and angular ‘She’s Got Weird Arms’ and the Public-Image-Limited-on-acid ‘Allergic To Food’.
On an album that offers little in the way of redemption ‘Smiler’ brings things to a cataclysmic (though satisfying) conclusion and suggests that there’s many more chapters to be written in the Melvins story. In the meantime, enjoy the band at their blistering best.
- Tarantula Heart is released via Ipecac Recordings on 19th April 2024.
- Official Website
Track List:
- Pain Equals Funny
- Working The Ditch
- She’s Got Weird Arms
- Allergic To Food
- Smiler
