Nude With Boots

Nude With Boots is an enjoyably acerbic listen, with a decent spread of compositional variety, that empties its acid bath just occasionally enough to give its audience time to towel off the waves of tumultuous noise.

It’s slightly less menacing, yet without a discernible drop in power, which should go down well in the burbs without alienating their hipster metal following.

Some are sure to hate it, but unlike any Melvins album since "Houdini," Nude With Boots certainly demands your attention.

Melvins' evolution from potential stoner rock dinosaurs to 21st century sound shifters is complete. [Jul 2008, p.52]

Nude with Boots follows their last album, 2006's "(A) Senile Animal," in being one of the most straightforward, epically rawk albums of the Melvins' career. [Aug 2008, p.99]

Flaunting the band's love for classic AOR riffs more here than on any other previous record, Nude chugs along on the strength of licks lifted from Led Zeppelin ("The Kicking Machine") and "Killer"-era Alice Cooper ("The Stupid Creep"), bringing a sense of boogie to Buzz's now-perfectly honed tablature of bludgeoning guitar work.

Bassist Jared Warren and second drummer Coady Willis (a.k.a. Big Business) return as the perfect-fit rhythm section for lifers Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover, who are still communicating in their own avant-boogie metal language like twins separated at birth.

This band is still nearly as big, as slow, as lumberingly loud as they were in the days Kurt Cobain was trying out for a spot on bass.

As with most endeavors in uncharted territory, some songs miss the mark (an unnecessary ambient keyboard instrumental "Flush," for instance), but the straightforward beasts like "Billy Fish," "The Smiling Cobra," and the majestic title song "Nude with Boots" showcase the Melvins at the top of their game, while the lumbering brutality of "It Tastes Better Than the Truth" and "The Savage Hippy" shows that their warped sensibilities are still intact and that they're far from softening, even after almost 25 years in the game.

In sum, Melvins fans, do what you need to do. Newcomers might want to check out A Senile Animal, but then again, perhaps this one will make the last one easier to understand, and then it may be more enjoyable working backward.

They’ve become one of the most prolific staples of the American underground. And it’s there that Nude With Boots is a sound and welcome contribution.

The results are surprisingly tame, if not un-rocking.

It’s not a bad piece of work overall, but when we want to hear classic Melvins, “pleasant” music isn’t exactly what we’re looking for.

Nude With Boots alternates between their trademark, skin-crawling sludge rock, and more accessible, almost anthemic moments. [Aug 2008, p.106]

Sure, there's a little too much filler, but this is pleasingly radio-unfriendly fare. [Aug 2008, p.140]

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.