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Anybody with their heads in the underground when grunge erupted from the Pacific Northwest like Mount Ves-who-cares in the early 90s has a fuzzy memory of The Melvins. For those that came late to the party even back then, The Melvins were the band that coulda, shoulda, woulda made it but wound up the bush-league Nirvana instead—Melvins drummer Dale Crover even filled the drum seat before Dave Grohl joined. In addition to that, singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne has found success in his spare time away from The Melvins with Mike Patton in Fantomas. Needless to say, since they started twenty-four years ago, The Melvins have made strides individually, but together the band is still regarded as the good (but not great) grunge band that never made it.

Because of that, the clichés don’t exactly apply; Nude With Boots can’t be called a comeback because The Melvins never left (in fact, 2006’s (A) Senile Animal garnered the best response of any album the band has ever released) and it isn’t bad because, well, these are some of the best-written songs the band has ever released. But, by the same token, it probably won’t be the album that turns The Melvins into arena headliners or mega stars because it couldn’t be construed as a mainstream contender on a bet.

So what could Nude With Boots mean for The Melvins? It’s simply a very, very good record by alt-rock’s most criminally under-appreciated, underrated band.

You wouldn’t know it from note one though. Nude With Boots opens ominously with “The Kicking Machine”—a song that, if it was the only one you heard from the album, would have you swearing The Melvins finally gave in and accepted the (unjustified) comparisons to Black Sabbath that they’ve garnered for years. “The Kicking Machine” tries for a designer impostor slab of Dio-era Sabbath badness and falls short of even that; leading even diehard fans to believe that they shouldn’t expect much. Happily though, the band recovers immediately with “Billy Fish” which finds them in the finest form.

The sludgy swing of tracks including “Dog Island,” “Suicide In Progress,” “The Smiling Cobra,” the title track (which is a great showcase of the band’s current, two-drummer line-up that almost finds the band venturing into Rush country) and “The Stupid Creep” trump everything the band has done previously in its entire career and more than makes up for less lucid moments like “Dies Iraea,” “Flush” and “The Kicking Machine” too. Osborne’s vocals have actually improved in tone; no longer growling and snapping awkwardly metered stanzas, the singer delivers even-pitched and better toned lines than he’s ever been able to before and he now dominates the mixes with an authority he has scarcely ever dared to attempt previously.

This is now two albums in a row that The Melvins have been able to surprise a listener base that thought it had the band pegged and written off. Could it be that they’ve finally hit a stride? Maybe—late bloomers aren’t unheard of.

Artist:
www.melvins.com
www.myspace.com/themelvins

Album:
Melvins – Nude With Boots will be out July 8, 2008, on Ipecac. Pre-Order NOW on Amazon!

Download:
Melvins – "Nude With Boots" - [mp3]

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