Continuing their ongoing string of lineup experiments,
Melvins stalwarts
Dale Crover and
King Buzzo team up with
Butthole Surfers'
Paul Leary and J.D. Pinkus on
Hold It In. With such a distinct sound, the band's various personnel changes often feel somewhat superfluous, offering a variation on their usual sound without altering things too far from the kind of sludgy goodness listeners have come to know and love. With the addition of Pinkus and
Leary, however, it feels as though a very fundamental shift has occurred, taking the band's sound in some very different, and interesting, new directions. Although the album's opener, "Bride of Crankenstein," feels like classic
Melvins with its constant assault of crunchy riffs and grimy production,
Hold It In enjoys a radical change in tone on "You Can Make Me Wait," a laid-back rocker with a groovy, slacker vibe that leaves it feeling more like
Ween than
the Melvins. Meanwhile, "Eyes on You" finds the band doing a freaked-out impression of a straight-ahead blues-rock number, pairing a rowdy, stomping beat (with handclaps and all) with oddly paranoid vocals. Those songs were penned by
Leary, and the decision to hand the control to someone else is a bold one on
Crover and
Buzzo's part. Though the album contains plenty of odd twists and turns, there's enough of the old
Melvins to keep things from straying too far from home, offering more than a few comforting oases for listeners to refresh themselves before they head out to explore some of
Hold It In's weirder moments, making for a mix of the strange and the familiar that feels like classic
Melvins without necessarily sounding like the bandmembers are borrowing ideas from themselves.