Search - Various Artists :: We Reach: The Music of the Melvins

What did you expect?

Porkchop Express | 09/18/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"If you buy this then you are either a fan of Melvins, one of the bands on this tribute, or both. Either way, at best a tribute album will just make you want to listen to the original band, and this one is no exception. The bands on here are of three varieties: those that try to do faithful renditions of the original song, those that make the original song their own, and those that make songs that have no resemblance at all to the original. The bands that do well here are of the middle category...taking the source material and adding some of their own sound.

1) Mare (Nightgoat)--Haven't heard this band before, but their "cover" doesn't contain a single note of the original song--a very forgettable bit of keyboard and vocal looping



2) Dillinger Escape Plan (Honey Bucket)--Try to do a faithful cover which is marred by horrible production...it sounds like it was recorded with a boombox



3) Mastodon (The Bit)--Great band that plays this song live from time to time...pretty much a note for note cover, but still good



4) Strapping Yound Lad (Zodiac)--One of the best tracks here...they take the original and add some great keyboard flourishes that create a much more ambient experience than the original



5) Pig Destroyer (Claude)--Note for Note cover marred by weak vocals...why bother trying to sound just like Melvins? Think they're trying to be hardcore by covering a rare track...



6) High On Fire/Keelhaul--Pretty good, faithful to the original and Matt Pike sounds like Lemmy, which is cool



7) Meatjack (Shevil)--Good, note for note cover that will just make you want to hear the original



8) Strapadon Factory (Joan of Arc)--members of SYL, Mastodon, and Fear Factory--one of the better covers here



9) Isis/Agoraphobic Nosebleed (Boris)--see #7



10) Absentee (Revolve)--note for note...silly vocals



11) EyeHateGod (Easy As It Was)--awful...sounds weak compared to the original...horrible production and vocals are really bad



12) Dog Fashion Disco (Anaconda)--I think they thought this was a Faith No More tribute...



13) Disengage (Raise A Paw)--see #7



14) Blessing the Hog (Hog Leg)--the mighty Sean Ingram--this rocks like Coalesce, so it's all good



15) CKY/Gnarkill (Laughing with Lucifer...)--why cover this? but it really isn't as bad as it could have been I guess...heavy, plodding riff...



16) Maritime Murder (Copache)--trying to hard to be Melvins



17) Made Out of Babies (Bar X...)--Great cover...their singer is awesome, and this is a hard song to cover



18) Pincer 2 (Echohead/Don't Piece Me)--by far the worst song on the album--is this Mike Patton or a guy who really wishes he were? Not a single note here, just Patton-esque vocal masturbation...what an insult"

'We Reach:The Music Of The Melvins' - Various Artists (Fract

Mike Reed | USA | 06/07/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Okay,I'm a casual fan of tribute CD releases.But,this one of the Melvin's repertoire is 'okay'.Total of eighteen cuts.Features bands like Mare,Pig Destoyer,High On Fire,Dog Fashion Disco among others I've never even remotely heard of before paying tribute to Buzz Osbourne(no relation)and crew.One good thing about 'We Reach...' is that it'll simply have most fans craving to hear the original versions of these songs."

Reaching Very High

Patrick Michael Ryan | Aurora, CO | 11/01/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"There is a reason tribute albums are not usually respected or sought after items. The bands chosen are not always winners and too many copycat renditions beg the question "Why even bother?" Thankfully, with few exceptions this is not the case.



Mare opens, I loved their debut EP and I wait with baited breath for a full length but I went from hard and ready to soft in about thirty seconds of this. I can appreciate abstract interpretation and I guess it's nice to have a sort of prelude to the rocking but this doesn't sound Mare or Melvins and saying this is a cover of ANY song is a waste of time.



Honeybucket is the song I figure Dillinger could get super technical with the easiest, and indeed does it work wonders.



The Bit is one of my favorite Melvins songs and the great Mastodon do us a service by giving an already great song a surge of adrenaline. No sitar effects, more uptempo, the awesome riffs are extra heavy, and you will hear a great Buzz impression.



Strapping Yound Lad adds some layers to Zodiac and it sounds good, but SYL are too polished and produced for me anyway and I have the same problem here.



The masters of brutality: Pig Destroyer blew me away with their previous Melvins cover of Oven off the 38 Counts of Battery album, so I was a tad disappointed with Claude seeing as how it's so short and they dial down the extremity to about the level of The Stooges on heroin, but that turns out to be awesome in and of itself. PxDx will never disappoint even with something out of left field.



Keelhaul plus High on Fire tastes great with dual vocals!



Strapon Factory plays Joan of Arc with great emphasis on drone/noise elements.



What may seem an odd pairing, Isis & Agoraphobic Nosebleed team up to deliver far and above the heaviest track on this album. Aaron Turner and Scott Hull's guitars will crush you, taking the full nine-minute chunk they need to correctly pay homage to one of the best Melvins songs.



The quality of the bands continue with Eyehategod, very welcome here. Who needs to know more than EHG is playing a Melvins song? I mean that's just awesome.



Blessing the Hogs do a very noisy longer version of Hog Leg and it amuses me to think they chose the song based on it's name alone.



CKY & Grarkill deliver a better Laughing with Lucifer at Satan's Shadow than I ever thought possible, apparently they DO know how to get heavy, and Jess Margera can stop doing his impression of Lars Ulrich for a few minutes! I was amazed.



Made Out of Babies turn out one of the essential tracks off the album and my fascination with vocalist Julie Christmas only grows more intense. By downplaying the ska elements from Bar X the Rocking M and adding their own tension building and release this track easily rivals the original.



Pincer 2 does A Capella versions of two songs to close the album. It's pretty cool I suppose and fits in with the Melvins love of experimentation anyway.



So as far as tribute albums go, I'd say this one is light years ahead of the usual way they're slopped together. The bands that appear all have respect for the Melvins prevalent in their own work and seem to have taken time with the arrangements. There's a fair mix of straightforward covers and weird tangents, so all needs are met.



So you've seen the great bands on here, they're playing the Melvins songs you love, i'd say it's time to $$$.

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