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MELVINS   Joe Preston   LP   (Boner)    17.98



      The latest to wash ashore in this recent flood of Melvins-related vinyl reissues, the band's trio of "solo albums" that came out on Boner Records back in '92 have all been resurrected on wax for the first

time in twenty years, featuring the original music and accompanied by a poster and digital download code. Here's our old review for this stuff from when we originally got 'em in stock:

      If you've been following the Melvin's for awhile, you know that those dudes love KISS. They love 'em so much that back in 1992, the Melvins issued a series of three EP's, one from each member (King

Buzzo, Dale Crover, and then-bassist Joe Preston) presenting their own EP of original solo material; the discs were totally modeled after the original KISS solo albums from 1978 in both look and concept, mimicking the same cover art

style and KISS-logo lettering, making this part homage, part prank. These are now pretty hard to find, but are absolutely crucial to Melvins fans as each of the EP's are like a slide-section of the member's creativity, and all are

totally crushing and weird in their own manner.

      The most maligned entry into the Melvins solo EPs trilogy, Joe Preston's disc is also my personal favorite of the series, and it's also the longest at almost half an hour. His solo disc was one of the only things that Preston recorded during his brief stint in the Melvins, along with the Nightgoat single and the Lysol album. If you're a regular here at C-Blast, you've no doubt noticed that we are HUGE Joe Preston fans. The guy has played with some of our favorite bands ever (Earth, Sunn O))), High On Fire), and is also the force behind the mighty Thrones. The dude just bleeds heaviness. His solo Melvins EP is definitely the most fucked-up of the three, but Sunn O))) and Thrones fans are gonna be stoked to see the shape of things to come captured here; the opener "The Eagle Has Landed" is a brief bit of sound collage fusing a really fucking annoying recording of a kid throwing a temper tantrum over scratchy 70's elevator music; and "Bricklebrit" totally predates the Thrones sound with a splattery drum machine, alien feedback, and slow creepy mutant riffage - freaking crushing, and sounds like it could have come off the Sperm Whale album. But it's the final track, the 23 minute long "Hands First Flower" which should have all fans of Earth, Sunn O))), Black Boned Angel, and all things ultra heavy tarpit guitar dronemetal scrambling to attach their ears to this disc. Starting off with low, rumbling feedback drones and stretched out metal power chords suspended in space, the track slooowly shifts and turns with crushing ominous sludge drone and distant, elephantine tympani strikes, sounding exactly like what Sunn O))) were doing on their 00 Void album, but with those monstrous, distorted drum explosions and Preston's weird electronic sounds making it even heavier. When this came out, man, so many people hated it, thinking it the most disposable entry in the solo series, but listening to it now proves that his disc was just way ahead of it's time...