When a covers album is released by a band, it is usually a sign of their decline and slide into oblivion. Rules get thrown out when dealing with the Melvins, though. When they do a covers album (and they have before, see 2000's release The Crybaby), it just seems more like a party. This is just them blowing off steam and having a great time with some favorite tunes and good friends. The Melvins are far from sliding into oblivion, having put out their most solid material since their major label run in the nineties with the last few albums for Patton's Ipecac label. Buzzo is still a force to be reckoned with, and Crover is still the best rock drummer since Bonham.
The selection of songs is wide and varied. They do Queen, Venom, The Jam, The Kinks, The Fugs...even Divine. The guests are also a real treat. Mark Arm lends his vocals to their cover of The Scientists - Set it on Fire, and it feels more like classic Mudhoney than anything Mudhoney has done in the past decade. Trevor Dunn even shows off his voice on a cover of Pop-O-Pies - Timothy Leary Lives. Buzz even does a solo cover of Heathen, a Throbbing Gristle tune, to close the LP.
Two tracks stand above the rest, though. Jello Biafra joins for a cover of Roxy Music's - In Every Dream Home A Heartache; where Biafra seems to be channeling Vincent Price singing for Bauhaus.
The song that completely justifies this release though, and is worth far more than the price of admission, is Jim Fucking Foetus lending his presence to an oddly faithful and rollicking cover of Bowie's - Station to Station. I can only hope for an album w/ Thrilwell and the Melvins to show up sometime in the near future; oh what wonderful and apocalyptic noise that would be.
This is just a really fun and rocking album. Its a damn shame that the fantastic and utterly delightful McCartney cover - Let Me Roll it, from the Melvins Lite album - Freak Puke, wasn't saved for this. It would fit right in.
This album can best be described as a dream-melding of the Misfits and Annete Funicello. It is beach music for the damned. At first listen, I thought to myself..."self, this is decent stuff. an interesting throwback to surf-rock". Then, after finding myself dancing around the house to it, without ant memory of queuing it up, I started paying attention. Listen to the tracks, "In The River" and "If I Could Count" at your own risk. this is highly addictive music.
Yeah, okay...this album came out a decade ago. I know.
I reserve the right to dredge up stuff from the past and shove it back into your slack-jawed visage, my funny droogs.
"In the beginning there was Jack, and Jack had a groove; and from this groove came the groove of all grooves..."
And thus begins one of the greatest tracks ever to hit a laserlit, drug-ridden dancefloor. That slapdrum-beat never gets old. Dangers is as important to the American electronic music scene as Detroit is.
Two people made Chicago's WaxTrax legendary, Jourgensen and Dangers. Always ahead of the curve, providing syncopation we haven't heard since the thirties...Dangers pulls us close to his breast and proceeds to blow our mind. This album lets some of the brightest lights in electronic tunes remix his tracks into a veritable cornicopia of post-rave decadence.
If you have to have a MBM hit, but don't have a new release to soothe that savage need (and I find myself in this position fairly often), dig up this oft-overlooked remix-album. Jack Dangers is always at least a decade ahead of the curve. That means that this album is just now relevant and deserves another listen.
Genuflect and enjoy.
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