Friday, November 22, 2013

Melvins - Lysol (1992 Boner Records)



The pinnacle of psychedelic sludge metal.  monolithically heavy, like the churning primordial ooze.  side one opens with the 18 minute epic "Hung Bunny" and "Roman Dog Bird"...  a droning guitar intro slowly evolves and solidifies and transforms into a brain pounding war dance before breaking apart into a warped gas huffin' hallucination...  it's pretty much the heaviest thing ever recorded.  side two takes a left turn with a slowly grinding cover of "Sacrifice" by Flipper,  and an inspired  take on Alice Cooper's "Second Coming/Ballad of Dwight Fry".   "With Teeth" brings things back around to the album's opening drone, but the guitars are different now, the oppressive heaviness has been lifted and the music is actually radiating.  Buzzo is at his most optimistic with the lyric, "I know it's not very evil/ but you've just got to learn to let it go/Sometimes when the heart beats wide you can take it on the doves." in typical Melvins fashion, gravity eventually takes over.  the light beams get sucked into the black hole and the song falls in on its own weight. 

Lysol was recorded in one week in 1992.  King Buzzo - guitar/vocals, Dale Crover - drums, Joe Preston - bass.  they were forced to change the name of the album after Lysol filed a trademark protest, so early pressings were sent out with black tape over the title.  later printings omitted the title.






Lysol begs to be synched up with footage of the Hand of God raining blows down upon humanity's head, so turn the volume down on this and let it roll over you

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