It's hard to think of a band that's gotten more artistic mileage out of a consistent sound than the Melvins. Since their debut Gluey Porch Treatments almost three decades ago, the Melvins have barely wavered from the lumbering adamantine groove that made them so hugely influential on countless grunge, sludge, and alt-metal acts. At the same time, the group's nucleus, frontman Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover, have jumped at opportunities to experiment for the better part of their history. Most notably, over the last ten years Osborne and Crover have shaken things up dramatically, leading an ever-shifting array of Melvins lineups as if the band encompasses multiple identities at once.
In some ways, Basses Loaded is the logical culmination of this ongoing musical-chairs policy. Crover and Osborne's preference for lineup fluidity is rooted in the 2005 departure of longtime bassist Kevin Rutmanis (Cows, Tomahawk). So it follows that Basses Loaded features six different people on bass, most of whom have participated in some form of album cycle with the band. (Crover himself plays bass on four tunes, leaving the drum duties on those songs to original Melvins skinsman Mike Dillard, who returned to record and tour behind the 2013 album Tres Cabrones.) But Basses Loaded also signals trouble, with several indications that the band could now benefit from stability as much as it has benefited from freedom in the past.
Perhaps for the first time ever, the Melvins sound unfocused and—worse—like their music is beginning to lack energy. Where you can point to just about any tune in the Melvins catalog and marvel at how Crover, Osborne, and their cohorts convey passion resorting again and again to the band's trademark Sherman-tank rhythms and de-tuned guitars, Basses Loaded mostly just plods. Sure, it's gutsy to start an album off with “The Decay of Lying,” a downtempo skeleton of an arrangement that stretches out to six-plus minutes. But the song is devoid of the textural elements the Melvins normally excel at. It also lacks a climax, which leads you to question whether there's a payoff for the patience it takes to sit through it.
There are lively moments: second track “Choco Plumbing,” for example, with its soaring, '76-era KISS-inspired chorus over an odd-shaped riff. But if anything the song only highlights that we haven't heard enough lately from the Jared Warren/Coady Willis/Big Business incarnation of the band that's been phasing in and out of activity since 2006—especially in contrast to the hodgepodge of contents that makes up the rest of the album.
To say that the cover of the Beatles classic “I Want to Tell You” doesn't shed any new light on the original is an understatement. It's as if the band were vying to give us all the textbook definition of “throwaway cover tune.” Osborne has publicly professed his love of the Beatles, while their influence on guest bassist Steve McDonald's main band Redd Kross is obvious, so clearly they don't mean to be irreverent. But Osborne's snarling vocal can't help but give the song a sophomoric demeanor. Likewise, Osborne and Crover are fairly avid real-life baseball fans, but their rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is so snide you would never guess it. Here, it functions as little more than a novelty item, and barely functions in that capacity.
The real kicker here is that “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is preceded earlier on the record by “Shaving Cream,” another old-time novelty song with a similar cadence. The song eventually switches into something resembling an electronic loop, but then devolves into outright half-assery when Osborne just shouts “I'm all fucked up / I'm all fucked up” over and over. “Planet Destructor” features the otherwise extraordinarily inventive Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Trio-Convulsant), who just absentmindedly plays a mismatched walking bassline over the verse as if he'd been playing along with the wrong tune the whole time. The gag is revealed when the whole band shifts into full-on jazz halfway through the song. By then, it's too late.
Such moves might elicit lukewarm chuckles if they were coming from a band of teenagers for an audience of teenagers, but from seasoned veterans with a dedicated following they reek of being low on ideas. Only the warped psychedelia of “Maybe I Am Amused,” which features Nirvana's Krist Novoselic, legitimately goes down avenues the band hasn't explored before. Novoselic's accordion injects shades of Eastern gypsy folk music and singer/songwriter folk into the Melvins sound, reminding us that the Melvins have remarkable range given how doggedly they've stuck to their guns.
With its variations in mood, tone, and personnel, Basses Loaded plays more like compilation of B-sides culled from multiple recording sessions spanning several years. That's not actually the case, but the album's lack of flow—and in some cases, lack of point—suggests that for this group with its vitality still well intact after 30-plus years, a re-focusing is probably in order after a very fruitful run of creative detours.
