Volcanic riffs, demonic howling, off-kilter comedy and the kind of grimy undercurrent beloved of grunge's grubbiest acts - if you guessed The Melvins, you'd be dead right.
It's hard to believe the underground Montesano rockers have been going for 30 years now, and Tres Cabrones is their 19th album. Rough, ragged and raw, they get right back to business from the opening grind of Doctor Mule, as front man Buzz Osborne gargles something about getting a regular job.
As if. Buzz is as wayward as always here. On Dogs and Cattle Prods he sounds as if he recorded his vocals from the middle of a sewer, he croons like Mike Patton on the awesome Black Sabbath grind of I Told You I Was Crazy, and he embraces joke-rock swing on Tie My Pecker to a Tree.
Yep, the wheels fall off Tres Cabrones there and on other supposedly funny songs like 99 Bottles of Beer and You're In the Army Now. The Melvins have always delivered albums with a few wry in-jokes, but they're hardly ever funny.
Let's face it - you want them to deliver enough sludge to fill a swamp and there's enough here to prove their upcoming Powerstation show should be a doozy. You might need a shower afterwards though.
