This Machine Kills Artists
Buzz Osborne started The Melvins some 30 years ago, and in all that time he\'s stayed true to the trio and never strayed. Releasing nearly 30 albums of heavy, sludgy punk-metal has made The Melvins one of the longest-running bands of the first punk wave (or postpunk, depending on your definition). So Osborne’s first solo album—an acoustic one, at that—was more than a small surprise. He succeeds in avoiding the clichés of churning out a “50th generation of Woody Guthrie” (“Who needs it?”). Instead, the first strains of the opening track, “Dark Brown Teeth,” sound like a loose string on a huge tin can, tuned to some warped, bottomless deviation from E, and Osborne’s voice enters, distant and dreamy. The psychedelic veneer continues on “Rough Democracy,” but Osborne takes a slightly doomier, threatening tone. *This Machine* tumbles along—ragged, rough, and (remarkably) agreeable at moments. His aggressive playing and meaty riffs have surprising appeal in acoustic form. Kudos to the King for charming his subjects anew.
Some of the heaviest musicians on the planet can commune beautifully with the quietude of folk, and Melvins leader Buzz Osborne's the latest to try his luck with the genre. His new solo album is a refreshing breath of unplugged, fuck-it-all folk.
Legendary sludge-rock wildman unplugs his famously filthy guitar on his debut solo LP, with mixed results.
Sometimes the great ones just don't know when to quit. Less often, the great ones quit too soon.
After nearly 30 years in the Melvins, it's hard to say how much guitarist and founder King Buzzo -- also known as Buzz Osborne -- still hopes to do musically that he hasn't done just yet, but he's crossed two items off his bucket list in one stroke: he's made his first full-length solo album and recorded his first acoustic project at the same time.
They said it couldn’t happen. They said it shouldn’t… oh, OK. We’re fibbing. Still, after 31 years and 19 Melvins albums, it seems odd that Buzz Osborne should finally choose to strike out alone.
King Buzzo has a lot of musical ideas chawing beneath his mondo shag, prompting the release of a seventeen-song solo album. As one of the principal inspirations sometimes overlooked in the evolution of NIRVANA, it's justifiable Buzz Osborne names his new album "This Machine Kills Artists". That idio...