If you’ve been a Melvins fan as I have, you most likely already have the original pressings of what will be reissued. The exception is that you’re not going to have these specific pressings, which will be unique in this configuration.
The records that will be released are their second album Ozma, their third album Bullhead, their fourth album Lysol, along with the EP that came before Bullhead, the awesome Eggnog:
Ozma was the album that followed up their awesome debut, Gluey Porch Treatments. By then, bassist Matt Lukin left the band and headed up to Seattle to join a few members of the now-defunct Green River in order to start Mudhoney. By then, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover moved from Washington State to San Francisco, where Buzz met with bassist Lori Black. It was through this move that Buzz met up with Tom Flynn of Boner Records, and they ended up working together for a good four years. In fact, it is Boner Records who is handling the new reissues.
Eggnog was an EP that lead towards their third album, with three bite-sized songs on Side A and one bun-length song on the B-Side, which was incredibly slow. Despite its Christmas-themed cover, it was not a holiday record but its music was very much a treat.
I originally felt Bullhead was a weird album when it was originally released in 1991, not sure if it was because the arrangements of the songs sounded different, they began to be more open with their musicianship, or that the speed of the drums sounded different from their first batch of records. Perhaps it was the beginning of Melvins becoming more open with themselves, and it had taken me awhile before I got into enjoying this fully. I always loved “It’s Shoved” but by the time I finally got into the album as a whole, I realized everything I needed to hear was already there. I just needed to catch up.
When Lysol was released, I oddly enjoyed the music, and I say “oddly” for a few reasons. Originally, there was no track listing on the cover so I assumed that it was just one gigantic song divided over two songs. I hadn’t been familiar with Alice Cooper’s “The Ballad Of Dwight Fry” so I wasn’t aware it was covered on the album, nor did I know the album had six songs in total, so I loved it as some Yes-like mammoth feat. When I learned there were six songs, I had to re-listen to it all over again. Loved it more. It only seems slightly odd looking back because this was released in 1992, a few months after Nirvana blew up with Nevermind. No one knew at the time about Melvins getting picked up by Atlantic, so it seems unusual and perhaps now appropriate that they’d depart from an independent label with a set of music that sounded like it did here. Again, did one giant song really mark their entry onto a major label? The album also marked the debut of their new bassist, Joe Preston, whom I had known of as being a member of Earth. While his existence with the band was brief, he was more than welcomed. (You can see and hear more of him on their home video Salad Of A Thousand Delights.
The new reissues from Boner are being released as two sets of two-record sets. This means Ozma and Bullhead will be released as one set, while Eggnog and Lysol, now called Lice-All due to the lawsuit, will be together as one. It may have come off odd to join these albums together opposed to Ozma with Eggnog or Bullhead and Lice-All but in many ways they’re fitting too, so that’s what fans will deal with. The new double records will be packaged with gatefold sleeves, featuring old photos of the band along with the original cover artwork. These sets will be out in the new year on January 20th. You may pre-order them below via Amazon.
This Is Book's Music 