Hostile Ambient Takeover was released a mere two weeks after Mike Patton issued Fantômas' entirely non-transcendent convergence with the Melvins, Millennium Monsterwork, on his Ipecac label. My guess is that he wanted to set things straight by giving the band another show. And so, Aberdeen's own unleashed their seventeenth record (fifth with Patton's young freak organization)-- making a grand total of five albums for the band in three years. It's hard to know what's lifted the floodgate for Melvins releases in recent days, though a good guess might be that their increasing strangeness is opening new doors for their songwriting. Or maybe it's just that they now have the freedom to release as many records as they want, whenever they want.
Whatever the case, on a roster with Fantômas, Ruins, Dälek, and Kid606, the Melvins' old-school molasses art-thrash seems positively quaint, if not for lack of effort on the band's part. Hostile Ambient Takeover retains the Melvins' now very familiar stone-rock pound, and Buzz Osbourne's bullfrog growl yet makes clear that having a shitload of sludge riffs and an awesome drummer can only take you so far. Furthermore, I'm not so sure that the Melvins' relatively recent flair for the overtly weird is all that great a development. Sure, Patton seems to love them, but in the 6+ minutes of "Black Stooges", with walls of dirty guitar, tricky time signatures and extended percussion solos, where the hell is the rock? I think it's supposed to be 'out', but it sounds too routine amongst the rest of these guys' recent material-- and the massive outro of feedback isn't funny.
"Dr. Geek" sounds like prog-metal-rockabilly, like if Revered Horton Heat suddenly realized how cool Dream Theater was. Of course, the Melvins are supposed to be inherently cooler than either of these bands, but that just makes it all the stranger to hear them going at it like this. Similarly, "The Brain Center at Whipples" spends entirely too much time getting to the good riffs (takes them three minutes before the jamming truly commences), and "Foaming" is too much song for the one good idea it presents (in this case, the unexpected change of pace into almost pop/rock realms).
It's not all depressing, though: "The Fool, The Meddling Idiot" is classic Melvins brainfreeze, with more broken siren guitar and super slo-mo dynamics. About two minutes in, the bottom drops out, Buzzo vomits a soliloquy of unintelligible atrocities, and before you know it, the band's right there shitting along with him. Just as the mud threatens to swallow you whole, the song transforms into something like a slow-grind piano ballad-- out of nowhere, the Melvins are playing the soundtrack to some 80s slow jam. And then, for no discernable reason, Clover lays down a quick indie-funk beat. Now that's eclecticism! But in the end, Hostile Ambient Takeover's best moment is its shortest: "Little Judas Chongo" presses all the right hard buttons in only two minutes, suggesting that these guys still know how to grab hold of your balls in a pinch.
Skip Hostile Ambient Takeover if you want-- it's nothing spectacular-- but just remember: one day you're going to want to rock again. The Melvins and Patton's various projects aren't always on time, but Lysol, Houdini and Stoner Witch are there as refresher courses in kicking out jams. Take them as prerequisites, and hit this in your spare time.
