MELVINS 1983 (WITH VOID MANES AND NI MAÎTRES): THUNDERBALL
ARCHIVED FROM LOUDER THAN WAR
Melvins 1983 (featuring Void Manes and Ni Maîtres): Thunderball
LP | CD | DL
Out Now
4.5 out of 5.0
Melvins return with Thunderball, which follows swiftly in the wake of their split mini-LP with Napalm Death. It may well be one of many career highlights.
Sean Millard dials M for Melvins for the second time this week, as he drops the needle on the opening groove.
It depends how you count ‘em, but this one is around about the 30th Melvins studio LP. There are closer to 50 if you count live albums, splits and comps. The band are nothing if not prolific.
Birthed in 1983 with their debut LP released in 1987, I guarantee that they’re older, wiser and more experienced than you are.
So sit up and listen.
Thunderball is an appropriate name for this one. It shares its moniker with the ball of Hope in the UK National Lottery and the Best Bond film ever – just check out that frog-suit on the 1965 movie poster for evidence. Both “Hope” and “Best” are words that also can be applied to the record.
The last two or three full LPs haven’t been my favourite Melvins’ albums. They’ve been good – it’s kind of impossible for me to think that anything they do is rubbish – but they haven’t stuck with me like some of their other albums. They’ve been a bit patchy, so Hope plays heavily on my mind as an integral feature of the anticipation I’ve experienced waiting for Thunderball to land.
That Hope and dedication to the Melvins’ cause has paid off, because Thunderball is the Best Melvins full-length since Pinkus Abortion Technician in 2018. To be fair, I’m pretty sure it will ultimately beat that too.
It’s definitely one of the good ones.
Meaningless to most, but for the record, Thunderball is the Melvins’ 83 lineup, which means erstwhile and god-like King of Skins, Dale Crover, is out from behind the kit – and Mike Dillard, original drummer from… erm… 1983… takes the stool.
Thunderball is Melvins’ third release with this lineup. The first was 2013’s Tres Cabrones and the next was 2018’s Working With God. The 83 legend is designed to signify a back-to-basics expectation that recalls their earliest sludge/punk anthems. It doesn’t really work as such. Yes – Cabrones and Working… are comparatively conventional in Melvins’ terms – but Thunderball is a different beast entirely.
I’m pretty sure that it was necessity rather than design that insisted on the transient lineup change for Thunderball, as Dale Crover had a pretty serious back operation around the time it was recorded and was out of action for a while.
Perhaps that’s why he’s not present at all on this release – previously he’s played bass when Dillard has been the tub-thumper. It’s weird to read the credits and not see Dale’s name on them. All’s well though – he’s back now, in fine form, and will be the drummer on their forthcoming “Stop Your Whining” UK tour in August, so go and see them live if you can. You won’t regret it.
What makes Thunderball stand out is not just the punchy songwriting – they’ve excelled themselves here – but the inclusion of two noise artists to supplement the Melvins sound with drones, beeps, hisses, bleeps and boops. The experimental knob-twiddlers in question are Bristol’s Ni Maîtres, who recently supported Buzz and Trevor Dunn on an acoustic tour of the UK and Europe, and who also plays stand-up bass on the LP – and Void Manes – credited as providing “Creepy Machine Vocals”. The bed of sound collage and unexpected texture that they bring to the Melvins’ shebang elevates Thunderball to something really special, even if we’re Croverless for the duration.
The LP comes in at around 40 minutes, so it’s not as short as it feels – but as there are only five songs it – one of which is Vomit Of Clarity, a two-minute instrumental sound experiment – the songs seem to fly by. Opener and preview track – the near perfect King Of Rome – is only three minutes long too – but what an ecstatic opener it is.
So to all intents and purposes, the forty-minute fort is held by just three incredible ten minute plus epics.
But don’t let that frighten you off. Not one of them outstays their welcome, such is the variable and unconventional songwriting, which continually surprises – changing tempo, dynamics and atmosphere repeatedly and on a whim. It’s nothing short of staggering.
From Blondie to Black Flag in a flick of a guitar pick in the three-songs-as-one Victory Of The Pyramids, for instance.
Have a listen to King of Rome to give you a shit-kicking idea of what classic Melvins sounds like bathing in blankets of electronics:
Now give that second preview track, Victory of the Pyramids, a listen too – it’s a great example of how the songwriting prevents the riffs from hanging around long enough to get boring. And it defines snappy ten-minute epics in the process:
Short Hair With A Wig closes side one of the record. Its sprawling enormity just grinds away until it becomes entirely addictive. It’s not often that such a long song can make you to want to play it again straight afterwards, but Short Hair does – such is Melvins’ genius. From Buzz’s voice, solely accompanied by Dillard’s toms and the noise-merchants’ industrial whines, to the thunderous and melodic guitar breaks, Short Hair With A Wig is Melvins’ Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Every section has its own identity and hooks. It’s genuinely one of their best songs – certainly of this century, if not their entire career. It recalls the Bullhead era in places – but the production, space and sheer cosmics of the electronics ensure it’s not a retrogressive call-back to past ‘glories’. Quite the opposite.
It shows us all why Melvins are still held in such high regard by hardcore music fans of all genres. What they’re doing is STILL different, surprising and really fucking EXCITING.
The other track we’ve not visited yet is album closer Venus Blood. The song begins broodingly with Ni Maîtres’ rolling, sludgy bass and Buzz’s immaculate chugs. Creeping. Daunting. Then crashing with short-lived open chord signature riffs.
It’s a beautiful thing. It could come from Houdini.
I’m not sure there’s a bigger compliment to be paid.
The album package is ace, as ever – Mackie artwork seemingly depicting Buzz as a multi-iris thunder demon and the beautiful black on black printing adds to the feel of substance and delicious attention to detail.
That’s something the band ALWAYS delivers on – whether via Mackie’s great designs and letterpress experiments or Tom Hazelmyer’s linocuts – there’s always something exclusive and precious about the packaging. They take care with their product.
They even include a 12-page Mackie designed booklet in the vinyl edition, which is a lovely thing to hold and lust over. Something they are continuing from their recent spate of re-releases from Ipecac. My copy’s a cute Mustard Gas smokey vinyl copy and it sounds immense.
As always, by the record if you can.
With Thunderball, Melvins have achieved that elusive thing; appeasing the nostalgic hardcore who are itching to relive those golden memories of their youth but also contemporary listeners, unfamiliar with the band who will just dig those heavy riffs – afresh – like the fat old Heads at the back once did.
Even though appeasement would never, ever, be part of Melvins’ agenda.
But the recollection just a part of it. Just because the songs on Thunderball are hooky and recall the standards of yesteryear doesn’t mean the LP looks backwards. The addition of the electronics of course heightens the sound – but most importantly, Buzz’s songwriting has evolved to such a degree that he can now nonchalantly knock out progressive ditties.
Those two words don’t belong together.
I chose them specifically, so really think about what I mean.
There’s a career’s worth of talent, experimentation and ruthless structuring at work in all these compositions, which lulls you in with their surface-level familiarity but glues you in with the unexpected – whether that’s abject pop or total noise. Buzz has mastered songwriting to the point that ten-minute songs feel as accessible, addictive and rewarding as the best two-minute singles. Progressive ditties.
I don’t understand how he’s managed it, but I’m really glad that he has.
I think that Thunderball establishes a new bar for Melvins to beat. Far from being in the twilight of their career, this one feels like it might just be their Best shot at a new dawn. I Hope so. Somehow the best just got better.