NORMAL RULES SELDOM apply to Melvins. Apsychedelically inclined sludge metal band that emerged when no such thing existed, Buzz Osborne’s amorphous mischief-makers have built a career upon the gleeful confounding of expectations. Even at their most commercially forthright, the likes of grunge-adjacent classics Houdini and Stoner Witch were far too weird to cross over to the mainstream, and we love them for it. But even by their own cock-eyed standards, Tarantula Heart is a jaw-dropping mindfuck. Built around wild, percussive jams created by drummers Dale Crover and Roy Mayorga, traditional song-writing has been abandoned for an intuitive approach, and the results are spectacular. Furthermore, the cudgelling riffs that have often informed Melvins’ strongest records are back in abundance.
Opener expands and devours across 20 languorous minutes, and is a liberated colossus. Buzz’s vocals pin
