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Track Listing: The Water Glass Evil New War God Pig House I'll Finish You Off Electric Flower Hospital Up Inhumanity and Death My Generation Pg X 3

The newest album from the Melvins, "The Bride Screamed Murder" is a hard hitting, thunderous epic, and the 18th release from the Washington based band.

I cannot, for the life of me find any words to describe the first song, "The Water Glass." It's like 3 nonsensical songs rolled around in a puddle of weird, balled up and tied with bailing twine. It makes no sense, but my god, it's awesome. This is definitely a song for the more seasoned Melvins fan.

The second song, "Evil New War God," however, is pure awesome. It opens up with an odd percussion bit and goes into a hard, chugging riff, with thick bass, heavy hitting drums and gruff vocals. The Melvins seem to like to play around with different sounds, and this track has a few, but they really fit the song in an odd way. This song features an oddly timed breakdown, as well as an interesting synth melody following the main riff. Definitely a great track. A bit on the long side, with a running time of 4 minutes and 49 seconds.

Another great track off this album is entitled "Hospital Up" which opens like an old-school Soundgarden track. With it's interesting guitar, drum, and vocal arrangements, this song is pretty trippy. It's not as hard as the rest of the tracks on the album, it's like a hidden gem you would while rummaging through record's in your dad's garage. The bass work on this track is phenomenal, it keeps everything in time while sounding awesome. At the 2:53 mark, the song picks up a tiny bit, and gets a little more fast paced, then everything stops for a bass run with light percussive accompaniment, then, the track goes into what I can only describe as lounge music with a hint of annoying stupidity. Really a terrible way to end such a great track.

The track following "Hospital Up" is entitled "Inhumanity and Death," exactly what I would expect from the Melvins. It's thrashy, hardcore, and brutal. It's like the soundtrack to getting your ass kicked. All the instrumentation is perfectly harmonized, creating an aura of pure doom. The song has a short percussive breakdown, and goes right back into it's thrashing madness. Another breakdown and the song is done. Again, another song ended very prematurely, but it's still a pretty great track.

This album is by no means a beginner's album. If you're not a seasoned fan of the Melvins, I would suggest going through their entire discography before you listen to this album. Otherwise, you might not understand what they're about and think it sucks. The Melvins are truly one of the best bands to come out of Washington in the 90s. Credited with helping Nirvana get their start, and in turn, Nirvana got them signed to Atlantic.

To buy the CD and for more information, please visit the Melvins' official website.