Melvins - Basses Loaded

----------------------An eclectic mix of songs featuring the band's revolving-door lineup of bassists
marks the second release by the seminal sludge-metal pioneers.
REVIEW:
------Sound 7/10
---------Melvins have had a busy year so far, with April's release of "Three Men And A Ba
by", a collaboration with Mike Kunka (that was actually mostly recorded in 1999)
, and now, their 24th studio record, "Basses Loaded". The band's fare on the las
t several records has been a bit more experimental, and opening with the very bl
uesy "The Decay Of Lying", the band starts the proceedings on a very hazy note.
The first track on any album is usually what sets the tone for the record, and i
f I could classify this song, along with the entire record, as anything, it woul
d be "psychedelic metal". The decidedly more upbeat "Choco Plumbing" still keeps
with the theme, with its fuzzed-out guitar tones buzzing through the track. "Be
er Hippie" is a slow, drugged-out sludgy tune, with a quirky keyboard melody and
eccentric guitar solo. The band follows this with a cover of The Beatles' "I Wa
nt To Tell You", and though it almost seems like a strange fit, especially with
how faithful and straight they covered the tune, they actually manage to pull it
off quite well. "Captain Come Down" is a bit more of a traditional sludge-metal
tune with a good heavy riff and a crazy, noisy solo. "Hideous Woman" shows a bi
t of the band's more progressive tendencies with a strange time signature and a
very elastic riff before blasting off into psychedelic-styled metal sound collag
es. "Shaving Cream" is a cover of a novelty song by Benny Bell written in 1946,
but by the end of the song, turns into one of the strangest parts of the record,
with loops and repeated vocals. And I'm just not sure that it really works for
me. "Planet Destructo" takes us for another hazy hard-rock trip, but has a tripp
y, jazzy breakdown in the second half that's really something to behold. "War Pu
ssy" is a short but epic rocker, another good headbanger with a cool solo. "Mayb
e I Am Amused" is a strange track featuring prominent accordion (played by ex-Ni
rvana bassist Krist Novoselic) and a typical noisy solo, but that doesn't really
fit the track. "Phyllis Dillard" comprises another sludged-out rocker, with a b
ig riff and a big wah-induced solo. The album closes with a very, very odd cover
of the classic baseball anthem "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", which is just a
very strange way to end this record.
Musically speaking, this album seems very unfocused and rather wild, with strang
e noisy solos popping in and out of existence for brief moments, songs that dras
tically change mood and feel, and musical numbers that sound less like songs tha
n soundscapes. While many of the individual tracks on the album are actually qui
te excellent, there does seem to be a bit of an issue with listening to this alb
um as a whole. It can seem a little overwhelming to take in, even in spite of it
s 46 minute length. The more traditionally "rock" numbers on the album seem to b
e the better tracks on the record, while some of the band's more experimental te
ndencies kind of wear thin on me rather quickly. But when the band is in full-on
headbanging mode, these songs are incredible.
The production is also kind of strange, with lots of weird sounds and interestin
g guitar effects like phasers and ring modulators. The bass guitars are the cent
ral focus of the record, being that the band recruited all of their former bass
players from the past decade or so (Dale Crover, Steven McDonald, Jared Warren,
Jeff Pinkus, and Trevor Dunn, along with a guest performance from Krist Novoseli

c), but even then, the production of the bass guitar sounds means it's more of a
fuzzy sound that kind of blends in with the rest of the music, and only on a fe
w songs does the bass actually pop out in the mix. The drums don't sound as powe
rful as they should for this kind of music, and that's a shame as the performanc
es are great, and the band also utilized performances of multiple drummers as we
ll (Dale Crover, Coady Willis, and Mike Dillard). I did find the vocal productio
n rather disappointing, with Buzzo's voice being mostly drowned out by the music
. Almost none of his lyrics ever seem to come through clearly. This is probably
the intention of the producers, to create a drugged-out, smoky atmosphere for th
e record, though I have to admit that it's not a production style I particularly
enjoy.
Despite some unfocused songwriting and technical hiccups in the production, ther
e are still some really good tunes and some headbanging riffs on this album.
Lyrics - 6/10
------------King Buzzo is known for his rather unintelligible, nonsensical lyrics (while res
earching the topic, I noted that "Melvins lyrics make no sense" is one of Google
's top searches about the band), and this album is no exception to the rule, wit
h many of the lyrics of the album being very incredibly hard to make out without
some kind of lyric sheet (which I had not been provided with for this review, s
o apologies if any lyrics I post are incorrect). Most of this is down to product
ion, with Buzzo's vocals sounding like they were recorded with the cheapest micr
ophones available to the studio, then drowned in reverb and delay effects ("Plan
et Destructo" is such a victim of this that the vocals are almost more of an amb
iance added to the mix rather than a prominent instrument). But songs like the o
pening track, "The Decay Of Lying" do feature some pretty typical stoner-metal l
yrical conventions like the chorus's strains of "We were the heroes of the world
/We died before we failed/There was no screaming only sleeping/To wear us down".
Buzzo's vocal style does fit the hazy nature of the music rather well. When his
vocals aren't being pushed back in the mix and drowned by overdrive and reverb e
ffects, they do command over the riffs in a very authoritative way. There are al
so a lot of gang vocals (provided by many of the bassists and drummers featured
on the record), and sadly those don't do much to help the vocal production situa
tion. But they do keep the vocal work sounding interesting.
Overall Impression - 7/10
------------------------Even though the production style of this record is not my cup of tea at all, I c
an definitely appreciate the excellence of much of the music on it. The band's u
nfocused writing style might not produce a consistent string of high-quality num
bers, but there are many really good tracks on this record, like "Choco Plumbing
", "War Pussy" and "Phylis Dillard", all of which feature some of the album's he
aviest riffs. The experiment of having many of the band's former bassists and dr
ummers may have affected the unfocused quality of the record, with many differen
t stylistic inputs (for example, one can definitely feel Trevor Dunn's influence
on a track like "Planet Destructo"). While the album had a lot of potential to
come off as a sort of cinematic record, it does feel a bit off-kilter and disjoi
nted, but that may be part of the appeal.
All in all, it's a pretty decent sludge-metal record, but far from perfect, and
perhaps not what many people will expect from one of the pioneers of the genre,
but when the band is playing to their strengths, they still make a very enjoyabl

e and unique-sounding racket.