The Bride Screamed Murder is superb. Not at all what I expected, but sees the Melvins in fine form. A Senile Animal (2006) and Nude With Boots (2008) saw the Melvins gelling as a tight four piece unit, with Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover playing alongside Big Business’ Coady Willis and Jared Warren. Now I love both these albums, and I would have welcomed a third helping. But we’ve all seen bands fall into formulaic ruts rehashing variations of the same album again and again until everything fresh and innovative is long gone. The Melvins have side stepped this pitfall. The Bride Screamed Murder finds them returning to a looser jam-based sound, reminiscent of their early stuff. This sounds like the renowned Melvins who will fuck up.
And then as now, when the Melvins jam and they seem to go all Full Metal Jacket on us. “Lysol” had definite marching moments. “The Water Glass”‘ drill sergeant call and response marching chant is one such moment. The Melvins Marine Corps? Its an interesting idea. Probably along the same lines as the Kiss Army. They know how to throw in a good belly laugh into their albums and this is one of them. Of course, the Melvins are kings of tongue in cheek, just this side of silly without being plain stupid, or being plain stupid but still getting away with it. Their cover of “My Generation” is pretty far-removed from the original. It’s only the words that gave it away to me. I’d been driving around listening to the Melvins and the lyrics crept up on me unawares. Fuck me, that’s The Who they’re playing. Its a pretty different cover. Like some of the more radical Laibach Sympathy For The Devil covers, I can’t imagine it needs to be credited musically to the Who. Lyrically yes, musically … hmm. Then there is the country-cum-Beach Boys vocal harmonies of “P.G. X3” – The Bride Screamed Murder does a lot of different things. It rocks, it jams, it drills, and, er, croons.
And holy shit, it’s the Melvins’ 25th anniversary too. They make it seem effortless.
-Alaric-
