Melvins - Eggnog [Green]

Eggnog is Melvins at their most gloriously stubborn, four tracks of sludge that crawl and pound. This reissue of the early EP comes on green vinyl.

First released by Boner Records in 1991 as a 10-inch EP, it arrived during the band's fertile early-nineties run, with Buzz Osborne on guitar and vocals, Dale Crover on drums and Lorax on bass. Melvins were already a reference point for a generation of heavy and alternative bands by then, and Eggnog shows exactly why, pairing colossal riffs with a deadpan refusal to play anything the easy way. Few bands have ever made slowness sound this menacing.

Side one runs through "Wispy", "Antitoxidote" and "Hog Leg", with Crover's drums landing like dropped furniture and Osborne's guitar thick enough to stand a spoon in. Then "Charmicarmicat" claims the entire second side for itself, a long-form test of nerve that rewards patience and a healthy amount of volume.

It is heavy music with a wicked sense of humour, which is the Melvins formula in a nutshell, and it has aged remarkably well.

For fans tracing the line from these records to grunge, doom and beyond, Eggnog is an essential missing piece, and the green vinyl makes it a fine-looking one too.