Melvins - The Bride Screamed Murder

With 18 studio albums, half a dozen EPs, seven live albums and literally scores of other odds and ends scattered across the musical landscape, for Melvins the act of releasing a record might well be as numbingly routine as loveless, over-familiar sex with a partner whose benign expressions you now gently despise.

For better or worse, Buzzo and Dale have rediscovered their mischievous side with some chain-gang vocals on opener The Water Glass and an idiosyncratic rendition of The Who's My Generation. Yet despite packing a couple of belters in Evil New War God and Pig House there's an unmistakeable sense of Bride... running in third gear for much of its 45 minutes.

What would be a great record by most other bands' standards looks anaemic in comparison to much of that brilliant back catalogue amassed over the past 25 years. Then again, that's a hell of a lot longer than most marriages. [Austin Tasseltine]