Melvins – Bullhead (1991)

November 18, 2020

I love the early Melvins records. They are dryer in production yet pull no punches with aggression. Its like grunge got a shot of adrenalin in the arm, only instead of making it really fast, it just made it really, really angry. Honestly, the grooves that these guys fall into is the best thing about the album. Songs are often hypnotic and repetitive, but have a similar effect to Swans and that kinda shit in the way that it hammers home a repeating intensity, rather than being uninspired or boring. Lyrically, I have no idea what’s going on, but Buzz I love you.

Its kinda cool that so many elements of the Melvins sound have been copied so many times, and to be honest its not exactly super unique or technical in the first place, but the coolest bit is, is that nobody sounds like the Melvins, even today where doom, stoner and grunge all kinda roll into one super saturated and often boring as all mothers of fuck genre (that sentence totally made sense right?).

I have not a single bad word to throw against Bullhead, with its paranoid, down-tuned and muddy production. The drumming is absolutely an endless pleasure to sit and listen to, and carries these sludgy treatments into new territories. A classic, no doubt.