Melvins - Hold It In

Melvins
Hold It In
14 October 2014
Ipecac

 

3 stars out of 5

Roughly thirty years ago, three high school lads from Grays Harbor County, Washington, embarked on a journey that would see them invent the sound that led to grunge. Bassist Matt Lukin went on to form Mudhoney, drummer Dale Crover played on fellow Grays Harbor residents Nirvana's Bleach, and guitarist slash singer Buzz Osborne is a towering figure in the worlds of both rock guitar and rock hair. The Melvins' current line-up includes Crover and Osborne in addition to Butthole Surfers members Paul Leary (guitar, vocals) and JD Pinkus (bass, vocals). Hold It In sees songwriting contributions by Leary on three tracks, during which he also assumes lead vocal duties. Leary's songs don't fit the rest of the album, composed of typically Melvins-esque slow, chugging punk-metal tunes of the kind that Kurt Cobain imitated during his early days. Despite the presence of this incongruous material, there's still some pretty good Buzz-tracks here, such as “The Bunk Up” and “Sesame Street Meat.” Of course, Buzz & Co.'s sense of humour is present in spades (see “Piss Pisstoferson” for starters).

So what is the band that was basically responsible for Nirvana's early sound and success (and introducing Cobain and Novoselic to Grohl) able to give us these days? A decent collection of the kind of tracks we expect from them, though made uneven by Leary's songs. There's little in the genius vein here as on previous records, though the epic closer “House of Gasoline” has moments of sublime bliss during its twelve minutes. It's cruel and untrue to say that Melvins have become stale, but there are moments on Hold It In that make one feel that staleness might be just around the corner. Of course, this is the kind of band that could put out an LP of the most fucked up shit imaginable in a mere ten months' time, so everything one could say about Melvins today probably won't apply at all by the time 2015 comes along.

reviewed by Richard Krueger