Artists like Low Flying Hawks, who cause a deep dive in a genre that’s overflowing with hidden gems, is a gem unto itself. In this case, not only did we jump back into LFH’s wealth of releases since 2016 but also poured over greats from Kyuss and recent outings from KIND to really feel the feels of this latest Desert Rawk masterpiece. Which it is because just knowing what came before will in no way prepare you with what’s to come on Fuyu.
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Trevor Dunn and Dale Crover are two names that, if you follow avant-garde, indie, or underground types of music, should be familiar to you already. Separately they’ve provided the building blocks for a lot of those aforementioned genres through their work with Nirvana, Mr. Bungle, Fantomas, and Melvins (in which the two managed to intersect) to name a few. Together they are the rhythm section of Low Flying Hawks who inadvertently continue that forward trend to push the boundaries of desert rawk and psychedelia alongside multi-instrumentalists and songwriters AAL and EHA once again.
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Magnetic Eye Records is to sludge metal and desert rawk what Metropolis Records is to Industrial and Roadrunner Records was to groundbreaking metal back in the day meaning when you pick up something with the MER seal of approval you know you’re gettin’ sumthin’ special. [Read more…]
A double Melvins album this year, Low Flying Hawks (Which features Dale Crover, review coming soon), AND a Dale Crover solo record this year? Is there such a thing as too much Crover?? I guess we’re about to find out… [Read more…]
I’m not sure if there was ever such a thing as a “classic” line up of (the) Melvins because, quite frankly, each and every line up they pop up with is pretty fricking unique and classic in its own right. Nevertheless we now have Tres Cabrones featuring the return of original drummer Mike Dillard thus relegating Dale Crover to bass duties obviously.
Fans of Houdini and Stoner Witch particularly should take note because Tres… is definitely a throwback in some respects especially when the former album is concerned. If Houdini was recorded in 2013 instead of 1993 (Geez, has it really been that long?) it would’ve sounded like this. One listen to the massive “City Dump” will transport you back to the nonsensical thrash sludge of “Honey Bucket” and while we’re on the topic of “nonsensical”, let’s not overlook the “covers” on this beast. Namely “99 Bottles”, “Tie My Pecker to a Tree”, and “In The Army Now” which are a far cry from this year’s Everybody Loves Sausages covers album but fit into Tres Cabrones nicely.
For a 19th studio album, Tres… still sounds just as fresh as (the) Melvins earlier monstrosities and features some of their most accessible stuff to date like “Dogs And Cattle Prods” except for the almost nine minute length. Okay, “accessible” for (the) Melvins then. On the other hand, for every “traditional” song you get like “Doctor Mule” or the punk rock by way of The Ramones “Walter’s Lips” (A Lewd cover, actually, followed by the equally intense cover of “Stick ’em Up Bitch” by King B and Pop o Pies) there’s an “I Told You I was Crazy” waiting around the corner to bring you back down to (the) Melvins version of reality.
Tres Cabrones, a veritable smorgasbord of (the) Melvins-style goodness, is out now through Ipecac Recordings
Grade: A