The 8th Best Album of the 00s: The Melvins - "(A) Senile Animal" (2006)

I've lost count of how many times I've praised the Melvins in general and this album in particular. It's their best, no two ways about it.

Earlier this year I did a four part series of the Melvins which was much appreciated. I'm glad you have such great taste, dear reader. This is what I had to say:

As one of the originators of both grunge and sludge (I would say the sole originators of both, but I'm trying not to be hyperbolic), Aberdeen, WA's favorite sons The Melvins have been raising hell for almost thirty years, kicking ass and blowing minds wherever they go and influencing everyone from Nirvana and Soundgarden to Tool and Mastodon along the way.

They've never let their integrity budge even the slightest so it's no wonder Atlantic Records (who signed them during the grunge craze of the early 90's) dropped them after only a couple of albums. They were hoping for the next Nirvana, but only got mean doom, uncompromising punk, ugly metal and strange noise experiments.

It's such a cliche, but the only predictable thing about The Melvins is their unpredictability. They're far too unreliable for a major label and when you buy a new Melvins record you can never know for sure what you're getting.

Their strength is that all their fans (of which they do not have nearly enough) know perfectly well that Melvins can whip out a blasting beast of an album that blows all other rock and metal bands away, and they can do it without even trying that hard.

The band is fully aware that the fans know this and takes every chance they get to tease said fans a bit. This is something I have huge respect for, as there are way too many whorish crowdpleasers who give the fans exactly what they want. The Melvins know exactly what the fans want and go out of their way to needle and torture them just to see how much they can put up with. Just to see how much the rubber band will stretch, and just before it snaps they flippantly release a whole album of one epic, flawless song after another without a filler in sight (1993's Houdini or 2006's A Senile Animal) like it's nothing.

Nail on head, dear reader. Nail on head.

(mp3) The Melvins - Rat faced granny
(mp3) The Melvins - The hawk

Buy it @ Amazon.com.