A Double-Dip of Ipecac, featuring Mutation and Melvins

Mike Patton's Ipecac Recordings have a reputation for releasing some of best, most bizarre albums known to man. They are responsible for the proliferation of Beak, Hella, Messer Chups, The Locust and that's not even touching Patton's own work. Over the past month they have added two more freakish concoctions to the record books. First is the debut album from monstrous supergroup Mutation, Error 500. And then there is Tres Cabrones by the ever-entertaining Melvins, and their second of 2013. Ah, its good to be a freak!

Mutation – Error 500

Mutation is the insane, messy, and vile brainchild of some of music's most eccentric outsiders. The core of the band consists of Shane Emery (Napalm Death), Ginger Wildheart (The Wildhearts), and Jon Poole (Cardiacs). While none of these men may be household names their legacies are told of in hushed tones in dive bars and basements the world over. Error 500 is their official debut and it is a slap in the face to anybody who tries to affix the word “super-group” to their work. Aside from the central trio the album features appearances by punk icon Mark E Smith (The Fall) and Japanese electro-noise savant Merzbow. Each of these names carries with it a sense of expectation and the album on which they all come together sets about confounding each and every one of them.

Taking cues from punishing industrial, grindcore, krautrock, and the uglier end of the prog rock spectrum Mutation are a thing of nightmares. This is not one for the faint of heart. Every track is packed full of Molten piles of jackhammer riffs and self-sabotaging grooves – just when they get doing something come along to thrown them completely out the window.. This is the very embodiment of sonic chaos. This makes the perverse sense of pop orthodoxy on 'Utopia Syndrome' even more unnerving. At first you gravitate towards the coherency among the noise. “I'm so happy” sounds like a funny thing to scream over and over again alongside a vicious glaze of static. Naturally even that relative calm doesn't last and soon you are tossed back in the mire.

This album maintains an exhausting pace from start to finish. After the whole 36 minutes you might feel beaten into submission and a little more unhinged than you were before you pushed play. My one piece of advice for anybody listening to Error 500 is simply don't expect it to make much sense. Expect it to be loud, crass, aggressive, even frightening.

Rating: B-

Recommended tracks: Utopia Syndrome, Computer This is Not What I ...

Melvins - Tres Cabrones

With most band's who have a near-thirty year career you can pin-point that one moment where they have given up and, fuck it, just done what they feel like. In that regard Melvins have the unfair advantage: that's where they started their career from. Tres Cabrones sees the eternal pranksters going back to their roots and collaborating with their original drummer Mike Dillard for the first time since 1984. This shifts Dale Crover into the ever-rotating role of Melvins' bass player. Crover is a legend behind the drum kit for a reason but Dillard does an admirable job of playing like him so, what the hey! King Buzzo's beautifully ugly riff and voice combo are an ornery as ever. The man seriously sounds like a barbarian high on soda and porn.

For those of you keeping track, Tres Cabrones is the second Melvins record of 2013 and it plays as the strange cousin to Everybody Loves Sausages. Instead of covering other people, the Buzzo & Crover circus cover themselves. A number of these tracks have existed in varying forms, some dating way back to Mangled Demos from 1983. The bulk of these tracks are little-to-no-nonsense rockers. 'Dr Mule' is a dead-ringer for Tomahawk and the treacle-paced punk rock of 'American Cow' is designed to be experienced at bong-rattling volumes.

And what would a Melvins record be without the occasional explosion of goofiness? After three solid rocking tracks at the beginning the wheels start to fall off in the worst/best possible way. Tres Cabrones includes three joke tracks spread throughout the set-list such as unhinged renditions of '99 Bottles of Beer' and 'You're in the Army Now' (“you'll never get rich, you son of a bitch, you're in the army now!”). Yes, that sounds like a horrible idea but you forget that Melvins made a career out of making horrible ideas sound badass. I dare you to not smile when 'Tie My Pecker to a Tree' comes on.

Melvins' sense of humour is frequently misunderstood. Just because their last few albums have been moody, percussive overdoses doesn't mean their isn't a gag at the heart of it all. With Tres Cabrones they have taken the much easier route and are making it really obvious that they are having fun at your expense. We wouldn't want them any other way.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Dr Mule, American Cow

Album Review: Midlake - Antiphon

This wistful band of Texans trade in the American gothic for a solid helping of psychedelics. Newly promoted singer Eric Pulido takes the reigns and leads Midlake down a new, twisting path on Antiphon. Hold on to your lava lamps!

If you had asked former Midlake vocalist/guitarist Tim Smith who the band's greatest influence was he would have said Jethro Tull. If you ask a fan the same question, especially a fan of their earlier work, they would probably say Radiohead. Despite the fact that the band hail from Texas it appears as though Midlake have a taste for eccentric British rock music, and who can blame them? Antiphon, a new album with a new line-up in tow, is an earnest attempt to create something that doesn't emulate the band's idols but rather make a true Midlake record.

Antiphon finds Midlake in a classicist prog mood. This is not like many other acts to shameless ape their forebears considering that nostalgia is a huge market nowadays. This is genuine worship, tribute, and synthesis that forges a new identity from the bones of those who came before. On tracks like 'Vale' and 'Provider' you can all but see the flowing sleeves and smell the pungent smoke. The album is packed with wistful, mid-tempo wanderers the type that were so popular in the mid 70s. That is certainly not to say that the album is bland but it certainly rides its own kind of strange momentum. Paul Alexander's loping basslines adds the right amount of shake and rattle to their natural roll whenever the pace threatens to dip too low.

'This Weight' sounds like a latter day Zeppelin, when they had traded their iconoclastic blues-rock for introspective jams. Even the guitar and keyboard effects are decidedly vintage. The gentle flutes that float through the arrangement of album closer 'Provider Reprise' are actually more akin to early King Crimson than Tull. As a part of that aforementioned line-up change around, guitarist Eric Pulido has taken the center stage from Smith and he does a fine job as the lead vocalist. His voice is not as fragile as Smith's was, and perhaps even more detached sounding, but it fits the tone of the album well.

This is certainly no good times record but it could well be a wellspring of good memories to an audiophiles ears. You might not spin it with some buddies and beers over a barbeque in the summer sun but it might just become your best friend at two in the morning with a half-emptied bottle of scotch at your side. It doesn't reach the brittle, dark majesty of 2010's The Courage of Others (the album that made many, myself included, fall in love with the band) but Antiphon is a fine collection of songs that ably points the way forward for this promising act.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Vale, Provider Reprise