Tres Cabrones

Capped with a couple of covers of songs by San Francisco punk jokesters Pop-O-Pies, Tres Cabrones finds the three stooges keeping the ghost of Mr. Bungle alive.

Even as they slip effortlessly into middle-age, their perennial prog tendencies are still evident on the demonic squall of I Told You I Was Crazy and the sprawling, trippy Dogs And Cattle Prods. [Dec 2013, p.99]

Some of this material resurrects the sneering, punkier spirit of early Melvins. [Nov-Dec 2013, p.90]

While Tres Cabrones churns with the urgency and fire of a much younger band, the collection ultimately reveals more about the group’s raw early years and the gnarled musical roots that got them here, than providing any hints as to where in the hell the Melvins might possibly be going in the future.

Tres Cabrones is yet another example of the Melvins’ mischievous musical enthusiasm and ability to triumph over the rock star flare-outs, reunion cash-grabs, and stale maturity that have plagued other veterans of the Seattle scene.

Tres Cabrones pummels you with no-frills sludgy goodness like "City Dump" and "Stump Farmer," uncomplicated and uncompromising metal.

While these kinds of weird departures would be hard for any other band to pull off, Tres Cabrones shows that, even after 30 years, the Melvins are still as brash as ever, and the album feels like a fitting way for the band to ring in a big anniversary with an old friend who was there at the very beginning.

The pacing is only slightly faster than a brontosaurus in a tar pit, each track riding on a spine of thick lumbering guitar. [No. 104, p.54]

A lesser work compared to, say, 2008's Nude With Boots, Tres Cabrones nevertheless stomps with enough sulphurous, slothful might to satisfy the faithful. [Jan 2014, p.102]

It gets gnarlier elsewhere.

This 19th album may not quite be the best of their releases, nor is it the most accessible album to come out of 2013 (accessibility would not exactly be very Melvins, would it?), but Melvins fans and fans of experimental rock, novelty songs and the classic punk style that never took itself too seriously will find a lot to love in Tres Cabrones.

"Comic" interludes like "Tie My Pecker To A Tree" lose them a point, but electronic-strafed epic "I Told You I Was Crazy" shows these proto-grundge "three dumbasses" have interests beyond neolithic riffing. [Dec 2013, p.70]