Melvins, ‘Thunderball’: Album Review

To rework their tangled history, or maybe it’s just a way to organize their prolific release schedule, Melvins have issued a handful of albums over the past dozen years under the name Melvins 1983 – a callback to the year they formed in Washington and, in a more strategic move, to the heavier and less experimental music of their earliest days.

The designation also emphasizes the pared-down lineup of founder Buzz Osborne, original drummer Mike Dillard, who was gone before their 1986 debut EP, and current Melvins drummer Dale Crover, who’s been a band member since 1984 and played on Nirvana‘s 1988 demo. (Osborne recommended Dave Grohl to Kurt Cobain when Nirvana needed a new drummer in 1990.)

Thunderball, the third album to be credited to Melvins 1983, doesn’t sound much different from 2024’s Tarantula Heart, made by a four- (and occasionally five-) piece lineup. Both records contain five songs and run a few minutes shy of 40 minutes, and both include enough weird ideas to satisfy old fans while never resting in too familiar a place. As far as 28th albums go, few artists have been as rewardingly consistent as Melvins.

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Osborne and Dillard are joined by Void Manes, credited with “noise, creepy machine vocals,” and Ni Maitres (“noise, upright bass, hand gestures”) here. (Crover doesn’t appear on Thunderball, though he is still a band member.) The guest electronic artists don’t so much add to the Melvins sound as they become a part of it. Listen to the way the skips and gurgles of the two-minute instrumental “Vomit of Clarity” bridge the lean opener “King of Rome” to the 12-minute “Short Hair With a Wig.”

Thunderball rarely deviates from the playbook; muddy riffs skulk along at a lumpish pace, building, on two of the tracks, over 10-plus minutes. “King of Rome” could have easily come from one of the band’s early records. And “Victory of the Pyramids” never loosens its grip after 10-and-a-half intense minutes. Despite Manes and Maires’ additions, Thunderball is undoubtedly a Melvins record, as persistent, uncompromising and victorious as anything they’ve done over the past 40 years.