Ipecac Recordings
2004
Pigs Of The Roman Empire
About This Album
This time out, the Melvins have tapped noise and mood specialist Lustmord, and his presence is felt right from the beginning. Drawing a death's-head card from Lustmord solo efforts like 2000's Purifying Fire, Pigs of the Roman Empire begins with the creepy, crawly "III." Ambient bumps in the night punctuate the severe bottom end as a hissing waver builds with horribly steady precision -- it's like being caught in a bear trap as the machete-wielding maniac trudges closer and closer. The eventual "Bloated Pope" is much more the Melvins', er, speed. Though it's grounded in whip-smart rhythmic clarity and includes a soupy fog breakdown, it's still a choking, stuttering gigantor headed by a classicist King Buzzo vocal ("Insect from the crawling Mother!") and squalid wails of electric guitar. (Tool's Adam Jones is again part of the proceedings for Pigs.) The title track is a straight duet of Melvins' slime and Lustmord spook. It begins as an exercise in the latter's penchant for moody gloom. The fearsome, buttressed trickling space he builds suggests train stations surrendered to neglect, and knights in black satin. But that early passage gradually gives ground to a deliberate, tonal guitar solo, which is then swallowed by more dead starship moaning.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,5,7 and 8)

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