Melvins
Houdini
Play Houdini
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AMG Review of Houdini
Patrick Kennedy
All Music GuideTo essay a concise, surefooted summation of the Melvins' catalog would be reductive at best, and laughable at worst. This is, of course, underground ock's trio of pranksters -- unpredictable and capable of complete musical about-faces in the turn of a measure. That said, Houdini is about as close as one gets to a representative Melvins album, and it vividly captures the band's unreconstructed power, vision, and musical strangeness. During the early-'90s purge of hair ock and candy-footed funk metal, the Melvins, as with many other acts, seemed fair game for a major label in search of another post-Nirvana gold mine. With Kurt Cobain's assistance, the band was snatched up -- and summarily dropped (after three brilliant albums, this being the first) -- by Atlantic. Though Houdini's immediate predecessors, Eggnog and Bullhead, pried open a few screwball chasms in the Melvins' syrupy distillation of Sabbath riffage and Flipper's noisy anti-punk, it was this album that displayed the full fruition of the outfit's sonic breadth, from the cough-syrup river drag of "Night Goat" to the revved-up "Honey Bucket," and from the creepy "Joan of Arc" to the glue-damaged "Sky Pup." Ringleader King Buzzo's riffs are stretched -- taffy-like -- to meltdown, and at other times they are razor sharp. Either way, they abound with a lumbering, lurching power. With their voluminous output and determination to continuously expand their sound regardless of musical trends, the Melvins oeuvre has begun to rival -- at least on paper -- the career arcs of Frank Zappa and Neil Young.
saved by the smell.
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This year i have seen too few live shows. As a result my once-desensitised hearing has become like an old geezer's, and my social life has not been what it was. Truth is, it's because of an extreme lack of funds, and that depresses me. So far i've only attended shows by Bonzo Dog Band and Red Hot Chili Peppers this year, and Reading Festival. I missed Deerhoof. Wolfmother. Tool. Et cetera. Slid...
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saved by the smell.
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Artist:
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Album:
This year i have seen too few live shows. As a result my once-desensitised hearing has become like an old geezer's, and my social life has not been what it was. Truth is, it's because of an extreme lack of funds, and that depresses me. So far i've only attended shows by Bonzo Dog Band and Red Hot Chili Peppers this year, and Reading Festival. I missed Deerhoof. Wolfmother. Tool. Et cetera. Slid...
More >
THE AUTOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
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--- - |- Two Saturdays ago, I, along with less than 100 onlookers, caught Bailter Space's reunion show at Bowery Ballroom. This past Monday, I witnessed Knot Feeder (ex- Don Caballero), supported by the youthful and tuneful Tropic Of Nelson and the atonal yet bass-driven Gods and Queens, and was dismayed at the low turnout. What's [...] ~~- Melvins
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 "Houdini")
