The Melvins ‘Hold It In’ Review: The Melvins + Butthole Surfers=greatness

[rating=5]

Buzz Osborne has had a pretty stellar 2014. His acoustic album This Machine Kills Artists redefined how heavy and uncompromising an acoustic album could be. And now he’s following up with the new Melvins album: Hold It In (Ipecac Recordings). And it’s one of their most unusual, hook-filled releases to date.

Click here for our exclusive Interview with Buzz Osborne 

If it sounds both new yet familiar upon first listen, it’s no accident. Osborne and drummer Dale Crover are joined by guitarist Paul Leary and bassist Jeff Pinkus, better known as one-half of The Butthole Surfers. And these are two weird tastes that go great together.

Those who like their Melvins material traditionally brutal and rude will be pleased with the sledgehammer opener Bride of Crankenstein, and the Sabbath-sludge of Sesame Street Meat.

But where Hold It In really excels is in more melodic (yet still wonderfully strange) song structures,  clearly a by-product of the Butthole Surfer’s playful psychedelic influence.

You Can Wait has a new-wave hook, made even more-so by the soothing yet oddball vocoder vocals, giving the track a Ween-esque quality.

Brass Cupcake is another catchy tune, with strident Cheap trick power-pop offset by Osborne’s crazed howl.

Barcelonian Horseshoe Pit is a bizarre trip, a backwards masked, musical wormhole that pushes its limits without overstaying its welcome.

The southern boogie of the amazingly titled Piss Pisstoferson  is solid and grooving, and I Get Along (Hollow Moon) is a fun excursion into rockabilly.

But the biggest highlight is Eyes On You, a playfully funny Anti-NSA rant with a gravelly chain-gang chorus: Hey neighbor hope you don’t mind, they got their eyes on you!

Hold It In plays it fast and loose, and is as fun to listen to as it surely was to record. Let’s hope we hear another Melvins-Surfers collaboration again in the near future. They were made for each other.

Hold It In will be released on October 14, 2014. You can pre-order the album via iTunes or Amazon below:

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