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The Melvins, God bless them, always have been an act eager to revisit their canon, to dive deep into the discography, and see what new diamonds they can mine. And so it goes with the trio’s new Frankenstein, a 4x LP titled Five Legged Dog, an acoustic re-imagining and considerable entrée of their nearly 40-year-long career. It’s alternately flawed, fascinating, and fantastic – credit, in the least, should be given to these guys for even trying something so bombastic and potentially career-rattling. No strangers to taking chances, Buzz Osborne and company deliver mightily on certain tracks and belly-flop a bit elsewhere. But the whole thing is about as close to a complete reinvention of their sound as we’ve seen in the group’s mighty run to date. Osborne, the band’s…
…atom-bomb-haired frontman, foregoes the electric crunch for which he is known to adopt the deep-strummed, at times even guttural, acoustic tendencies toward which he’s hinted on his recent solo LPs. The absence, in fact, of King Buzzo’s face-melting drop-D histrionics might be the most startling thing about the LP. Although staples like “Hooch”, “The Bloated Pope”, and “It’s Shoved” are given faithful – even dogmatic – treatment, it’s just weird to hear such emblems of punk-metal captured alongside, nay, led by the brightness of an acoustic six-string. Steven McDonald, he of Redd Kross and Off! fame, again joins the boys on bass and does an admirable job.
We’re sad to report the blah-fidelity treatment engineer Toshi Kasai gave McDonald on Pinkus Abortion Technician is magnified significantly here. Kasai can record metal, but his attempts on Five Legged Dog at treating or capturing acoustic bass often sound, somewhat literally, like a big old stereo fart. Sorry. It had to be said. The whole crew lends itself to the vocals, and they are done magically, even transcendentally, at times, capturing a hippie-chorale tone appropriate to the LP session’s Laurel Canyon roots. It’s a trip, for sure. – Pop Matters
