So when those four horsemen inevitably get tired of our meagre little world and decide to stomp it to an uncountable number of tiny little bits, what will happen? A complete drown out at the hands of tidal waves? Comets raining down upon our fettered landscape? The Melvins let rip their new version of Boris? As it turns out, I wouldn’t be suprised if it is the latter; the soundtrack of the incoming armageddon fitting in perfectly with their slightly-faster-but-still-as-heavy numbers off new album Nude With Boots, it’s nice to know Melvins have lost none of their spark over their 26 year long career. Due to the lack of a London date, this writer hightailed it down to Brighton in order to witness this Melvins feast (supported by duo Big Business and noise outfit Porn) – anything less than incredible would have resulted in a two and a half hour moan to the girlfriend along various motorways and a myriad of A-roads. For those less inclined to read the whole of this review, the trip back was spent listening to a newly-aquired Big Business CD and lecturing the girlfriend about why Boris was so good. Go figure.

Kicking off the festivities was the search engine’s nightmare Porn featuring Tom Moss on guitar/effects and the Melvins’ very own Dale Crover on drums – having recently released an album with japanese noise god Merzbow (…And The Devil Makes Three), it came as no surprise that the set boasted noise, and lots of it. For the half hour or so before Tim Moss came on stage a faint siren-on-acid esque noise had permeated the crowd – once he took the stage, this was cranked up to within an inch of the audience’s teeth-clenching threshold. Not to say this wasn’t good; not at all, this was sublime, the melody enough to keep it from trailing off into pure noise territory. Once the bassist and, after a while, Dale Crover take up their chosen instruments, the noise is elevated into the realms of sonic brilliance, the drums giving the piece a sense of pace while the bass (interestingly played with knuckle dusters) gave it a certain amount of oomph. The perfect climax came as Coady Willis (of Big Business and Melvins) joined the drums to give the audience the first taste of double-drumming action. Needless to say, Porn were a triumph, perfectly keeping the balance between being sonically interesting and melodically solid enough to applease the audience.

The good thing about all 3 bands on the bill sharing members and instruments? Short changeover times. For example: the wait between bands at most major venues is anywhere between half an hour and three quarters of an hour (sometimes pushing up to an hour). Here, it only took 15 minutes for Big Business to get on the stage and start hammering away, Coady Willis’ aforementioned drumming getting more of a look in this time around, and boy, that kid can play. Of course, melody is also needed to sweeten the crunch, which is handy, because Jared Warren is a beast on the bass. If you haven’t already (and why haven’t you?), go pick up one of Big Business’ records as soon as humanly possible – I haven’t been this impressed by a support band for a a good few months now (Eluvium supporting Explosions in the Sky springs to mind), and they were the perfect compliment to the Melvins proper. The bass lines driving the beast of a set along like a bulldozer, pushing through songs both old, such as Easter Romantic and Hands Up, and new, such as Cats, Mice, continually keeping the pace up. Eventually Dale Crover joined them on guitar (for the record, the liner notes for Stag says he plays the sitar on The Bit – what can’t this man do?), adding the guitar element to songs such as Just as the Day was Dawning, leading to a chunky and frankly awesome ending to the set.

As much as I would love to get through this review without mentioning token Melvins review words such as sludge godfathers, slow and drone, it turns out token words are there for a reason. However, this is not to pidgeon hole the ever-versitile Melvins into one meagre style of music – opener Nude With Boots is a pristine example of this. Fast, chirpy, but still with the trademark Melvins crunch, it’s a wonder how the crowd largely don’t move around more: movement is basically zero. And after album counterparts Dog Island and Dies Iraea, there’s still nothing (admittedly these are some of the more slower and beefier songs that Melvins have made in the last few years). Oddly, fecal matter only really begins to hit the fan when Civilized Worm broods it’s way onto the set – now we’re talking! Not that I’m not of the belief that gigs need ample amount of jumping and movement to be good, but here… it just fits. The set itself had perfect balance between old Melvins and new Melvins (i.e. post Big Business joining the band), the new represented fantastically by (A) Senile Animal having it’s own string of songs in the set alongside Nude With Boots material – Rat Faced Granny, The Hawk, You’ve Never Been Right and A History of Bad Men so very almost having a run through the set exactly the same as the album tracklisting.

Of course, the Melvins have has a long and incredibly fruitful career, their work varying from the slow drone (sorry) masterpiece Bullhead, to a live album of noise Colossus of Destiny, to the electic (and my personal favorite) Stag. To ignore this would be a crime, and Melvins thankfully stay within Bennett’s Law by playing a healthy dose of the classics throughout the set – debut opener Eye Flys is given the modern treatment, the creeping bassline being backed up by the furious double drumming (which, in case you haven’t heard, is symmetrical. Good fact right there), while possibly their most famous song Honey Bucket is presented the way they left it; frantic, messy and pure brilliance. By this point limbs in the pit were flying, and with good reason. This is controlled carnage at it’s very best. Tipping The Lion is a more stripped down (if it can be called that) affair than it’s electronic-ish album counterpart, with the the beat and libido that made me fall in love with the album version. Not a band to keep things at standard, they even brooded through a couple of covers, taking myself a good minute or two to recognize what they made of The Who’s My Generation. I’m sure fans of The Who would hate it’s chundering, half speed guts, but as an indifferent listener to Pete Townsend’s brigade, I loved it – it’s not often a cover isn’t recognizable from the original, and it’s this freshness which makes me fall head over heels for it. American classic Star Spangled Banner opens as a strinctly acapella affair, their singing backed up only be a series of boos from the audience, to be drowned out by frantic drumming and riffing by the outset of the song. Could this be a statement about modern America? Apparantly not, as Buzz later clarifies in an article it’s strictly neutral. So there you go.

Which brings us back to the matter of Boris. Does this deserve the best part of a paragraph to itself? Yes. This song on the album itself is one of the best heavy songs ever produced in my humble opinion – and to make it even better in every single aspect is a feat that only the Melvins could really pull out of their rabbit hat. The opening was both as devestating as the original and frantic as the newer stuff, with added drums giving the song an extra kick up the backside (see: the middle section of Etna by Sunn O))) and Boris, which is equally as spectacular), while the live setting gave the bass and general meat of it extra beef that the original CD just couldn’t get. And by the middle of the beast, the tempo was changed so they were singing and playing half speed. Half speed. Half the speed and just as brutal. And while the band themselves didn’t interact with the audience much, and the set wasn’t as long as it could have been (this is nit picking, however awesome The Talking Horse and Going Blind would have been), the stellar ending to the set summed up the gig as a whole: simply stellar.

Setlist:

  1. Nude With Boots
  2. Dog Island
  3. Dies Iraea
  4. Civilized Worm
  5. The Kicking Machine
  6. Eye Flys
  7. Suicide In Progress
  8. Billy Fish
  9. Tipping The Lion
  10. Honey Bucket
  11. Blood Witch
  12. Rat Faced Granny
  13. The Hawk
  14. You’ve Never Been Right
  15. My Generation
  16. A History Of Bad Men
  17. Star Spangled Banner
  18. Boris