Listening to The Melvins takes me back to college. This album makes me want to shoplift some beer from the Kum-N-Go, set a redneck’s truck on fire, get high and run through the quad naked. Actually, I only did one of those things and overall I was kind of a boring kid in college who just enjoyed going to punk rock shows and getting drunk at friend’s apartments while listening to punk rock albums. The rest is just what I imagined college was like, but hey you’re not here to read about my college antics (or lack thereof). You’re here to find out if the new The Melvin’s album is any good so let’s go do that shall we.
In the spirit of honesty I have to admit that I haven’t listened to The Melvins much recently. To be completely honest I haven’t listened to them at all in at least 8 years, if not more, and after listening to Tres Cabrones that actually made me a bit sad. So sad that last Friday I listened back through their entire catalog and I have to say that this album is one of their best albums. It’s everything I remember about The Melvins and associate with the band all wrapped up in 14 great songs. Tres Cabrones is also kind of a trip back for the band itself with Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover reuniting with their original drummer Mike Dillard and Crover now switching over from drums to bass.
It’s heavy, it’s menacing, it’s edgy, it’s metal, it’s punk rock, it’s fun and it’s just everything that comes to mind every time I see a Melvins patch on some gutter-punk’s vest outside of Amoeba. The album is full of awesome tracks that really stay true to everything I’ve come to know and (re)love about The Melvins and nothing embodies that essence more than the songs “Tie My Pecker To a Tree” and their cover of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”. Seriously, they did that.
I know they are a bit long in the tooth when it comes to the typical lifetime of a band, and that just makes those two particular songs so much more freaking awesome. After all this time they still don’t take themselves any more serious than they absolutely have to and you just have to admire a band who can successfully do that for this long.
Still harboring this spirit of full disclosure I have to admit that this admiration for The Melvins wasn’t always there. In fact, the first time I heard them, about 13 years ago, I hated them and chances are pretty good if you don’t already like The Melvins you might hate this album the first time you listen to it, and that’s ok. In fact that’s good, because many of the folks I know who love The Melvins now absolutely hated them at first.
For The Melvins, that’s just how it seems to be. You either love them or viscerally hate them the first time you hear them, but then you get that second listen (or third or fourth) and suddenly it clicks. These guys are awesome and they just don’t give a shit. They are the honey badgers of music.
Bottom line. The Melvins are going to do what The Melvins are going to do (be awesome) and you don’t have to like it, but you do have to accept it because that’s just the way it is. So give this album a listen or three and enjoy The Melvins in all of their unkempt glory.
Rating: 4/5
Tres Cabrones pre-order here