Melvins: Nude With Boots

At this point in their storied careers, King Buzzo

and Dale Crover of the Melvins have pretty much earned the right to sit back

and rest on their laurels. And on Nude With Boots, they do exactly that.

Where 2006's (A) Senile Animal, was weird, loose, spontaneous, and flush with

the energy of two new members (Jared Warren and Coady Willis of the blistering

Big Business), Nude sounds, well, a bit naked. Lean and not mean enough, songs

like "The Kicking Machine" and "The Stupid Creep" are as conventional as anything

the band has ever recorded. Even the disc's one-minute foray into ambient

noise, "Flush," sounds as disposable as its name (which, granted, was probably

the intended punch line). But the Melvins' crudely sublime mix of earthmoving

riffs and abyssal humor doesn't quite cohere this time around; the track that

comes closest, "The Savage Hippy," succeeds by sounding initially more like

vintage Butthole Surfers than vintage Melvins. Halfway through, however, "Hippy"

mutates into the type of crud-clogged gloom-fest that Buzzo and Crover patented

long ago. Too bad it's the album's second-to-last song; even after being chased

by the fairly ripping "It Tastes Better Than The Truth," it's not enough to

render Nude With Boots anything more than a placeholding disc with a couple of decent

jams struggling to redeem it.