Forty-plus years into their career, the Melvins still sound like a band that could detonate at any second — and on Thunderball, they practically do. Operating under their “Melvins 1983” moniker, this album reunites founding members Buzz Osborne (King Buzzo) and drummer Mike Dillard, and introduces avant-garde collaborators Void Manes and Ni Maîtres, infusing the band’s sludge metal roots with electronic textures.
Opener “King of Rome” barrels forward with a lurching, acidic groove, as if the ground itself is giving way. We then get a weird electronic noise mix with “Vomit of Clarity,” showing that Buzzo is open to a newer experimental electronic sound by manipulating recordings from Manes and Maîtres into a haunting soundscape. The next two tracks “Short Hair With a Wig” and “Victory of the Pyramids,” are the real meat of Thunderball.
“Short hair…” is a vicious sludge rock with hushed tension, with powerful riffs, embodying the band’s ability to blend accessibility with complexity. Within 11 minutes, it morphs into something stranger — a sludgy, off-kilter jam that feels like classic Melvins dipped in some particularly noxious glue. “Victory of the Pyramids” a nine-minute swamp monster of a track that lumbers and mutates before your ears. It’s Melvins at their most prehistoric—heavy, strange, and somehow hilarious.
Thunderball is a celebration of everything weird, heavy, and grotesquely catchy about the Melvins. Where other bands age into self-parody, Melvins double down on the chaos.
