Originally posted on To cap off my week of Melvins posts, I give you the (a) Senile Animal 4XLP box set, on beautiful, brilliant and bodacious blue/yellow wax. If I made Top Ten lists, this masterwork of stoner magic would be on my "Top Ten Heavy Records" of all time.
2006’s Animal marked Buzz and Dale’s first balls-out foray with the Big Business-infused lineup, bringing bassist Jarred Warren and skin-slapper Coady Willis into the Melvins’ circle, and showing how amazingly killer and rejuvenated a band that’s been around for 20+ years can sound by delving into the unknown and playing with two incredibly accomplished drummers; one panned to the right, the other to the left, wrapping their meaty arms around the tornado of porcine distortion.
“Civilized Worm,” the third track, was an immediate favorite and has always been the most standout cut in my eyes. The slow, in-the-pocket beat that kicks it off is the perfect intro to the anthemic riffs to come, and when they kick in, it’s totally surreal. And I looove the opening line: “We move more than I would like to gamble.” So sick. Just listen to it below and behold the percussive avalanche that starts around the 5:15 mark, ending the song with a mushroom cloud.
I was in Bar Great Harry in Carroll Gardens a little over a month ago, and my client asked me if I was especially geeked on any shows this summer: “Yeah! Tom Petty at the Garden, Faith No More, Lady GaGa, The Dead Weather…hmm…and the Melvins!” No sooner did I utter their name that Queens of the Stone Age’s “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” bled into the opening tom hit of “Civlized Worm” and I was in drunken, stoner rock bliss. Bar Great Harry consistently has one of the raddest playlists in the city, by the way.
The best one-two dickslap of the record goes to “Rat Faced Cranny” into “The Hawk,” the former being a giant ball of caterwauling insanity ending in a right-left drum roll duel that would give Neal Peart some serious wood, and perfectly segueing into the latter, a collection of some of the nastiest grind riffs and tempo-shifting I’ve ever heard from the group. I hope the widget does the transition justice. Fingers crossed.
Lastly, stick “A History of Band Men” in your pipe and smoke the shit out of it. It’s slow, it’s evil and it’s a sequel to “Civilized Worm” of sorts, replete with drone. Buzz breaks it down early on this one:
“Wake up you never looked so glum/Tell me how will we know they can't hear us coming? It's easy for me I've got a head-start running away.”
Chances are you won’t be able to find this exact pressing, but I think there’s an all-blue set currently up on eBay, so try to snag it if you love this band as much as I do.
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