Album review: Melvins - Hold It In

Even though they have been around now for more than thirty years, every time Melvins release a new album the question has to be asked: which Melvins are we getting today? Is this latest offering going to be from art-punks, sludgy overlords, feedback pranksters, cover song jukeboxes, or perhaps some new arrangement we’ve yet to behold? And then there’s the question of exactly who Melvins are at this point in time. In the last eight years alone they have performed as a venomous jazz trio (Freak Puke), as a double-duo in conjunction with kindred spirits Big Business (The Bride Screamed Murder among others), and as their original 1983 line-up (Tres Cabrones). And none of this precludes the possibility that Melvins have found yet another line-up to perform with. With so many unanswered questions the best thing to do is to grit your teeth, lay those questions aside, and embrace every new album with as open of a mind as possible.

Melvins latest record (their 22nd overall!) manages to side-step both of those burning questions by offering up something new on both fronts. Backing King Buzzo and Dale Crover on Hold It In are two men completely new to the Washington legends but just so happen to share their history. Paul Leary (guitar) and JD Pinkus (bass) were never household names but they were part of the infamous (but now defunct) Texas psych-rock outfit known only as Butthole Surfers. So what we have here are the original noise brats teaming up with two weirdos from Butthole Surfers to make some even weirder music. So far, so Melvins. But what will no doubt come as a surprise is that Hold It In is the most accessible Melvins record in years.

Hold It In shows exactly what happens when a band like Melvins cut loose and make an album for their own entertainment over anybody else’s. There’s no shortage of heaviness and there’s plenty of weirdness but at the heart of it Hold It In represents Melvins at their most playful since 2006’s (A) Senile Animal. Even after all these years these guys know how to write a teenage burn-out anthem like nobody’s business. In spite of its Hammer Horror title ‘Bride of Crankenstein’ could be the theme song to any number of high school stoner parties (particularly the part about “Spinning ‘round the wrong way”). The guitars are huge and gritty but they never completely obscure the catchy hook residing in the song’s core. 

All it takes is one look at the track listing to understand that Melvins never take themselves 100% seriously. If they did would they ever pen a brutish heavy metal tune and call it ‘Seasame Street Meat’? What about something by the name of ‘Onions Make the Milk Taste Bad’ or ‘Piss Pisstopherson’? These names are the by-products of eternal tricksters; Peter Pans who grew louder and less self-conscious in place of actually growing up. Naturally these eccentricities extended beyond just song titles. How else can you explain the accordion and xylophone bridge of the bruising ‘The Bunk Up’ that runs longer than the “meat” of the song? By the time you have waded through the final six minutes of formless noise that close out ‘House of Gasoline’ you should have little doubt that the joke has been on you, the listener, the whole time. 

A large portion of Hold It In is dedicated to pop-punk sing-alongs. Wait a second, you might say, have Melvins gone soft on us? Perish the thought, puny mortal. On the surface ‘Eyes On You’ and ‘You Can Make Me Wait’ might seem like something The Pixies might have come up with if they had been locked in an underground bunker with a lifetime supply of Quaaludes, but there is always a biting undercurrent of bitterness to sink your teeth into. It might not come as much of a surprise then that these “lighter” songs were all penned by Leary. His taste for bad-taste pop music has brought out some excellent material from these noise juggernauts.

After years of goofing on their own style and formula, Melvins have struck gold once again with Hold It In. It might not be the strongest album they’ve ever committed to record (fans will keep that argument alive for years to come) but it certainly is their most consistently good work in a long time. Only time will tell if this iteration of Melvins is going to become a regular gig or whether, like so many of their other good ideas, it’s destined to be swept away in favour of the next mad scientist concoction. 

Rating: A-

Recommended tracks: Bride of Crankenstein, Onions Make the Milk Taste Bad, Nine Yards