SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: MELVINS – THUNDERBALL

MELVINS
THUNDERBALL
IPECAC RECORDINGS

The iconic band Melvins is back yet again with Thunderball. Thunderball is the third Melvins 1983 record that Buzz Osborne (“King Buzzo”) and original Melvins drummer Mike Dillard have made together. Joining them for Thunderball is Void Manes and Ni Maîtres. With a long and illustrious career with over 30 records to their name, Melvins are bound to have a few duds in there. Thunderball happens to be one of those.

Melvins deliver an absolute dynamite opener of a track. “King Of Rome” is by far the best track from Thunderball. It is full-throttle energy from start to finish, with wickedly intense and thunderously fierce guitar riffs, gripping vocals, ferocious drumming, and harsh bass lines. It is a roaringly bad-ass combination of punk, sludge metal, and industrial. This is where Thunderball peaks as the following songs do not live up to the explosiveness of “King Of Rome”.

The closest the record comes to capturing that same peak is “Victory Of The Pyramids”. Melvins show off their creativity here quite a bit, as the track has numerous distinct sections, with the chorus being the best moment of Thunderball. The issue, though, is a disparity in quality among all those sections. Some parts are fantastic, other parts not so much.

Unfortunately, Thunderball is a record that just was not for me. It has its moments, but I was not really fascinated as I was with “King Of Rome.” The ambient sci-fi eeriness and wacky electronics of the instrumental “Vomit Of Clarity” would have been more memorable with some gnarly guitar riffs or aggressive drumming. Furthermore, it feels quite out of place with the rest of the record. “Short Hair With A Wig” has some great moments, especially the heavy head-banging sludgy guitar riff. However, it loses its momentum, gets rather repetitive and is unable to be fully captivating throughout its lengthy runtime. Additionally, the electronics used in this song are a mixed bag. In the intro they match very well with the menacing instrumentation. However, the outro goes on for too long. Those weird, surreal, avant-garde electronic noises in the outro feel like a bunch of filler. Alternatively, “Venus Blood”, is a decent song, but Melvins have many songs in their discography that do similar things better and in a shorter time.

Overall, Thunderball is a miss. Besides “King Of Rome”, none of the songs had the same impact on me, and it is a record I will not be returning to any time soon.

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