The Melvins - Three Men and a Baby (Cover Artwork)

The Melvins

Three Men and a Baby (2016)

Sub Pop


The story behind this album is quite interesting. Back in 1999, the Melvins teamed up with Mike Kunka, who was looking to kill time while his noise rock band Godheadsilo was on hiatus. They recorded an album together, but after a series of unfortunate events and some “junior-high level bullshit”, the project was shelved and forgotten…until now! The Melvins returned to the studio in 2015 to wipe off the dust of Three Men and a Baby and put the finishing touches on the record.

From the very start, we are treated to the King Buzzo’s Famous Old-Fashioned Fuzz, followed by Kunka’s echoing wails, occasionally layered with Osbourne’s booming vibrato. The combination of their vocals is hypnotic. Add Dale Crover’s unstoppable drumming and Kunka’s chug-a-lug bass lines, and it’s like I fell into some kind of psychosis.

Godheadsilo’s weird is in parallel with the Melvins’ weird, a pairing that makes perfect sense for listeners familiar with their style. The entire album is littered with nonsensical snippets throughout. In “A Dead Pile of Worthless Junk,” you can hear a wind-chime made cans and bottles in the background. “A Friend in Need is a Friend You Don’t Need” is just a two-and-a-half minute long drum solo with random shouting, complimented with applause.

The weirdness reaches its peak on the final track “Art School Fight Song.” It plays like a stripped-down black metal tune, as if it were recorded on a Fisher-Price recorder: blast beats, noisey distortion and incomprehensible whisper-screams.

The album is a fitting combination for two weird artists who come together to make a wonderfully weird album.