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The Fantômas Melvins Big Band | Millennium Monsterwork

The more experimental tip of the Melvins' iceberg.
CD, Ipecac/Bertus

Tekst: Tucker Petertil

Publicatiedatum: 05 juni 2002

The kings of Sludge Metal were spawned under the bleak, gray skies of Aberdeen, WA, whose dead-end streets and lumber mills seem to offer no alternatives. The Melvins' sounds seem like a natural outgrowth, which is not to say that the band's crawling, Black Sabbath-like sounds found acceptance there, but just that the desolate turmoil of their music makes perfect sense as a reaction to the drabness of their small hometown. They forged change back when they were in Aberdeen, and even now you never quite know what you're gonna get from the Melvins. Guitarist extrordinaire Buzz Osbourne (King Buzzo), drummer Dale Crover, and new bassist (formerly of Minneapolis' Cows) Kevin Rutmanis change from record to record; that's their charm and the reason why it was their protégé Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, and not them, who got all the acclaim. They can't seem to take this music business thing seriously. Just think back to their last few releases: the heavy disc The Maggot, the softer Bootlicker, and then The Crybaby, a catch-all of a disc that featured all sorts of oddities including guest appearances from Tool, Hank Williams Jr., and washed-up teen idol, Leif Garrett, who contributed a karaoke-styled Smells Like Teen Spirit. After that came Electroretard, which revised some of their old songs — Gluey Porch Treatments, Revolve, Lovely Butterflies, and Tipping The Lion — as well as an amazing nine-min-plus cover of the Wipers' Youth Of America and a cover of Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive. While the Melvins may be all over the map, they are always entertaining. Now they have just released two new records: Hostile Ambient Takeover, and a live record, Millennium Monsterwork from their big band the Melvins+Fantômas. The Millennium Monsterwork features Mike Patton (ex-Faith No More/Mr. Bungle/Tomahawk) on vocals and additional drums from Dave Lombardo (ex-Slayer). It's the more experimental tip of the Melvins' iceberg, with spurts and snippets of extreme music glued next to bits of harsh ambience, catering more to fans of Japanese noise bands and the Melvins' faithful than to the average headbanger. Their proper CD, Hostile Ambient Takeover, stays in the Melvins' metal mode from the opening drum introduction to the sonic pummeling that follows and is full of innovation and fury throughout. On the innovative side, the track The Anti-Vermin Seed is a 16-minute sludge stew, running the gamut from burned-out soundscapes to doom-laced vocals. The Melvins don't so much play music as build songs out of huge boulders of noise, piled gracefully into place by their musical forklifts. In addition to these new records, Ipecac will also soon reissue Electroretard and 10 Songs (both with extra tracks), and for the obsessive collector, there will be a limited edition of Hostile Ambient Takeover singles featuring one song from H.A.T. on each A-side and one very special unreleased cover on each different B-side.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/the-fant-mas-melvins-big-band/millennium-monsterwork/1602/
Meer The Fantômas Melvins Big Band op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/the-fant-mas-melvins-big-band