I’m with Buzz on this one, there really is very little that Melvins can’t do. One of those bands who thrive on unpredictability, at their core is an exceptional musicianship that has allowed this most unlikely of bands to carve out a unique career with their integrity fully intact. Thunderball, is the twenty-eighth album from the band and the third to be credited to Melvins 1983, as it features only core members King Buzzo and drummer Mike Dillard. With Void Manes (noise, “creepy machine vocals”) and Ni Maitres (noise, upright bass, “hand gestures”) lending a hand, it’s a very different album, comprising just five tracks, three of which are over eight-minutes in length.
So much for the blurb. There’s only one thing to know about Thunderball:
It.
Is.
Fucking.
Glorious.
The band dispense with introductions, dazzling the listener with the short, sharp King Of Rome, which sounds like Night Goat on steroids. An awesome opener, it finds Mike hammering out a syncopated rhythm as Buzz lets rip with an astonishingly brutal riff. In contrast, Vomit Of Clarity dispenses with trivial extras such as melody, offering two minutes of creepy noise that do nothing whatsoever to prepare the listener for the 11-minute epic Short Hair With A Wig.
Emerging from the sort of digital noise at which even Aphex Twin would look askance, Short Hair… is Melvins in excelsis and, if it takes over a minute to find its way to a riff, so be it – Mike and King Buzzo have all the time in the world and they intend to make this one count. When it does kick off, it’s a surprisingly controlled piece that blends Sabbath-esque riffing with the sort of harmonised leads that wouldn’t sound out of place on an early Queen album. From there, Mike and King Buzzo take us on a tour of primal doom metal, eerie post-progressive, and stuttering ambient – well of course they would. Few bands have this much imagination. Even fewer would let it run riot with such obvious glee. But then few bands are Melvins… Well, actually, no band is Melvins – they are unique, and the world is better for their existence.
What was I saying?
Ah, yes, Short Hair With A Wig – it’s a typically unique masterclass in alt-rock dynamics that just gets better with each subsequent listen. I sort of want to implant the track directly into my brain, so I can have it soundtrack my life – I think the world could be better that way.
Having seriously rewired the listener’s synapses, Melvins launch a faster paced assault in the form of Victory Of The Pyramids. Surprisingly melodic, for all the blazing firepower King Buzzo and Mike deploy, it leavens the mood with a lengthy introduction that, having successfully brought the listener along for the ride, suddenly takes a left step into punk rock, Melvins style. Somewhere amidst all this, lies a molten doom core – another volte-face in an album filled with them – before the whole thing collapses in on itself leaving the listener with only the wreckage of amp-destroying feedback for company.
The album’s final track is no less mercurial. An eight-minute hellscape of sinister doom, Venus Blood sounds like Mike Patton Fronting Heaven and Hell as Black Flag cheer in the distance, and it brings this monumental sonic outpouring to a suitably apocalyptic conclusion.
God, I love Melvins.
Let me rephrase.
God (the Gods?) love(s) Melvins. If any band were enough to see off the horsemen of the apocalypse, using their guitars to channel huge blasts of lightning, it’s Melvins. They’re the sort of band for which Zeus would gladly leave Olympus.
Fuck, I’m mixing all sorts of metaphor and mythology. I blame the festival-strength volume at which I’ve been blasting this monumental album for two-hours straight. It kinda messes with the mind.
Anyhow, you want this album. It’s ace. Buy it now. 10/10
