Melvins - Nude With Boots

Occasionally, rummaging through old boxes, you can encounter an album, book or whatever from years ago and suddenly recall how it blew your mind first time around. Melvins' latest opus suggests Buzz Osbourne recently stumbled across his Sabbath collection and had just such an epiphany. The first half of Nude With Boots demonstrates that love of big '70s rock that has become more apparent in their recent output, especially since the assimilation of Seattle duo Big Business into the line-up. One clear highlight, Suicide in Progress, begins with some fairly jaunty axe-work, before settling into a more malevolent groove. There are even glimpses of the unsettling eccentricities of wackier earlier Melvins albums like Prick, especially on the slow-burning Dies Irae and It Tastes Better Than The Truth. Pure, unadulterated rock power from the off, NWB features a succession of intelligent and gloriously bludgeoning tunes and is a suitably brilliant continuation of their recent form. [Chris Cusack]