The Melvins (Los Melvins) are set to release Tres Cabrones, a 12-song release that finds Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover reuniting with original drummer Mike Dillard, on Nov. 4th via Ipecac Recordings.
“Tres Cabrones is as close as we’re willing to get to the Melvins 1983 line-up,” explained Osborne. “The best part is it’s all new songs. I specifically wrote tunes that would be good for these guys to play and it worked out great. We had no interest in rehashing tunes we wrote 30 years ago and chose instead to simply create NEW songs. It worked out perfectly.”
“Making the Tres Cabrones record was a real treat indeed. It’s a trip down memory lane complete with debauchery and ultra violence,” said Dillard, who left the band in 1984 only to be replaced by Crover.
“After 30 years we release a record with the (almost) original line-up of the band,” added Crover. “I’ve always felt that drummer Mike Dillard was one of us. It’s great that he’s still a piece of the puzzle! Plus, I get to see what it’s like being the bass player in the Melvins! Tres Cabrones indeed!”
The Melvins annexed Big Business band members Coady Willis and Jared Warren in 2006 for (A) Senile Animal and the quartet has remained in this incarnation for four additional releases including Everybody Loves Sausages, a covers album released this spring. Not ones to relax, the Melvins introduced Melvins Lite, a version of the band that teams Osborne and Crover with Trevor Dunn (Tomahawk, Mr. Bungle). Melvins Lite released their debut album, Freak Puke, in 2012 and subsequently embarked on a 51 date/51 State (including DC) tour of the United States.
The Melvins are currently in the midst of their 30th Anniversary Tour in their ongoing four-piece iteration (father-to-be Jared Warren is on paternity leave with Butthole Surfers’ bass player Jeff Pinkus filling in). The band plays The Loft at Center Stage in Atlanta this evening.
Recorded by Toshi Kasai at Sound of Sirens Studios.
Mastered by John Golden
Design by Mackie Osborne
Omnichord & toy piano by Toshi Kasai
All songs written by King Buzzo except:
Walter’s Lips by the Lewd , Sticken up Bitch by King B and Pop o Pies
Tie My Pecker to a Tree, 99 Bottles & In The Army Now are traditional
folk songs.
Review:
Founding drummer Mike Dillard left the Melvins before the now-legendary band
had released a single LP. Thirty years later, guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer
Dale Crover have brought Dillard back into the fold for Tres Cabrones, with
Crover moving over to the bass (an instrument he had played as a teenager in
Kurt Cobain’s pre-Nirvana band, Fecal Matter). Listening to the Melvins’
22nd studio album, it’s as if it’s still 1983, both because the trio
sounds as if they never left the garage and because of their adolescent zeal and
sense of humor. But, this isn’t just a few middle-aged dudes trying to relive
their teenaged years — at least not entirely. Tres Cabrones is yet another
example of the Melvins’ mischievous musical enthusiasm and ability to triumph
over the rock star flare-outs, reunion cash-grabs, and stale maturity that have
plagued other veterans of the Seattle scene.
Dillard gets the honor of producing the very first sounds of the record as he kicks a few quick beats into “Dr. Mule”, a cheeky riffer made monstrous by multilayered wild man vocals and a few properly placed synth buzzes. Lead single “American Cow” oozes in, Crover’s sludgy bass locking into place as Osborne details how “I was stoned when I was seven/ I let it burn my brain.” That burning might have something to do with the next track, “Tie My Pecker To A Tree”, a goofy bit of juvenile comedy previously performed by Cheech & Chong, where triangle clinks recall spittoons and hyperventilating backing vocals provide some rhythmic momentum. Tres Cabrones also features the schoolyard rhyme of “You’re In The Army Now” and an honest to god take on “99 Bottles of Beer” (though they only get through maybe a bottle and a half before deciding to just chant the word beer over, and over, and over again).
These light excursions make tracks like the smirkingly evil punk jam “Stick ‘Em Up Bitch” that much more appealing, both providing the change of pace and making it clear that the Melvins are having fun and are entirely self-aware. In a sense, Tres Cabrones is the debut of the Melvins of old, but it’s also a great indication of the good that comes from Crover and Osborne’s infinitely impish desire to mix things up.
Essential Tracks: “Dr. Mule”, “American Cow”
Adam Kivel, Consequence of Sound