Latest Release
- SEP 27, 2024
- 52 Songs
- Houdini · 1993
- (A) Senile Animal · 2006
- Houdini · 1993
- Stoner Witch · 1994
- Houdini · 1992
- Houdini · 1993
- Stoner Witch · 1994
- Working with God · 2020
- Houdini · 1993
- Houdini · 1993
Essential Albums
- The Melvins’ major-label debut came about because of Kurt Cobain, who was appointed unofficial A&R scout to the music industry in the wake of Nirvana’s phenomenal success. Cobain helped win major contracts for bands that had long been ignored by the mainstream, often intentionally. The Melvins were so inherently anti-commercial that it’s still amazing to think Atlantic endorsed them. Fortunately, they made the most of their increased financial support and created Houdini, their hardest and most popular album. Co-produced by Cobain on six tracks (he also plays guitar on “Sky Pup”), Houdini has the most in-your-face sound of the Melvins’ career. They didn’t alter their formula, but rather souped it up. The guitars spill from the speakers like hot lava, and for the first time it’s possible to taste the hot stench of Buzz Osbourne’s vocals. Everything they do is done best here: the grinding, seething drones, the medieval trudges, the socked-in Sabbath grooves. They even reeled off a couple of “hits” in the form of “Lizzy” and “Going Blind.”
Music Videos
- 2024
- 2010
Artist Playlists
- These legendary sludge-metal pranksters unleash monster riffs.
- These godfathers of grunge have inspired generations of misanthropic metalheads.
- The hard-rocking icons who shaped this off-the-wall band's roaring sound.
- Raw sludge revealing the band's roots in burly hardcore punk.
Singles & EPs
Compilations
Appears On
About Melvins
It's no overstatement to say the Melvins thoroughly reformulated the sound of heavy guitar music in America in both the punk underground and the hard-rock mainstream. This is no small feat, considering that the band—cofounded by guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover in Montesano, WA, in 1983—have always been unconventional cult artists. Across their first five full-lengths, from 1987’s Gluey Porch Treatments to 1993’s Houdini, they developed a grinding synthesis of Black Sabbath-inspired metal and hardcore punk aggression that influenced not only Nirvana and grunge but also sludge, stoner rock, doom, and drone metal. The Melvins aren’t just heavy, however: They’re weird and irreverent, too. You can hear it in Osborne’s gnarled bellows and absurdist lyrics. That sensibility also explains why their records—especially those released after hooking up with Mike Patton’s Ipecac label in 1999—boast such wildly different personalities. Their 2004 collaboration with industrial pioneer Lustmord descends into dark ambient; by contrast, 2018’s Pinkus Abortion Technician is a slab of ’70s rock worship featuring Butthole Surfers legend Jeff Pinkus on bass. There’s real freedom in the Melvins’ unpredictability, and it’s just as central to their legacy as all their brilliantly crawling riffs and thunderous grooves.
- ORIGIN
- Aberdeen, WA, United States
- FORMED
- 1983
- GENRE
- Hard Rock