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RECORDINGS Quick Spins
A musical odd couple? Thanks to fine supporting players, Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis are well matched.
(By Danny Clinch)
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NUDE WITH BOOTS
The Melvins
The Melvins began life in 1984 as ahead-of-their-time Seattle area metalheads infatuated with the sludgy sound Black Sabbath sired during its '70s heyday. And while Melvins guitarist King Buzzo and drummer Dale Crover have spent the past two decades experimenting with electronics and tossing off tongue-in-cheek covers of rock radio chestnuts, among other conceptual giggles, they've never lumbered far from their comfort zone of very slow, very loud, very heavy rock.
With the rhythm section's death-march tempo and Buzzo's ear-scouring guitar tone, the Melvins existed on rock's periphery even when signed to a major label during the '90s. Which is why it's surprising, and enjoyable, that the new "Nude With Boots" flirts so openly with pop. Sure, some songs, such as the 7 1/2 -minute "Dog Island," still sound like the perfect accompaniment to a killer suffocating his victim in a straight-to-video horror movie. (In other words, they sound like classic Melvins.) But opener "The Kicking Machine" owes more to the stadium-filling likes of Grand Funk Railroad than the room-clearing noise that's made the Melvins infamous.
His comic bellow more intelligible than ever, Buzzo also displays a knack for clean, classic '70s guitar hooks, as on the title track; the band writes more catchy tunes than caustic riff workouts this time out. Still, at a moment when mainstream heavy rock isn't particularly heavy, "Nude With Boots" is probably still too raw to get the Melvins on the radio, even if their dogged longevity means they deserve it more than most.
-- Jess Harvell
DOWNLOAD THESE:"The Kicking Machine," "The Smiling Cobra," "Nude With Boots"
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Ratatat
Feeling nostalgic for the sound of vintage Nintendo blip-bleep-bloops? Or maybe the hazy pulse of '90s trip-hop? How about the guitar solo from "Hotel California"? Then meet Ratatat's Mike Stroud and Evan Mast, two Brooklyn buds making earbud-friendly instrumentals that effortlessly, shamelessly blend all three.
