Melvins - A Walk With Love and Death

The Guardian 60

(Ipecac Recordings)

Most bands grow more sedate with age; Melvins just seem to get sludgier. Twenty-five albums in, the band have long since perfected a sound that’s as dense as a neutron star. Death, the first disc of new double-album A Walk With Love and Death, continues the trend, with molasses-thick riffs played at a catatonic pace, punctuated by the slightest hint of a skewed melody on the likes of the magnificently titled lead single Christ Hammer. It is a perfectly serviceable Melvins album, though given that there have been 14 of those this century alone, casual fans might be tempted to avoid it. The intriguing outlier here, though, is the second disc, Love.

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