Melvins The Bride Screamed Murder As grunge pioneers go, the Melvins have been nothing if not steadfast in their heavy album output since the mid ‘80s. The band never really broke into the mainstream until after the wake of Nirvana, and even then their dizzying display of innovative and goofballish brand of dirty grunge rock still maintained a mostly cult following. With The Bride Screamed Murder, the band’s twentieth-something offering, the Melvins continue to show why they remain heads above the current crop of post-grunge rockers. Bride kicks off with the militant “The Water Glass,” featuring half-serious, half-hokey Marine-style marching before plunging into the dirty grind of, “Evil New War God.” Bride ebbs and flows with energy and tension, pummeling ear drums with “Inhumanity and Death,” and leisurely strolling through a hit-or-miss rendition of the Who’s “My Generation,” making it an inimitable listening experience. Listening to a Melvins’ album, it’s possible to pinpoint the exact influence the band has had on mainstream rock, even though their songs would likely never break into that stratosphere. Whether it’s the soothing, exquisite riff on “Hospital Up” that sounds like There is Nothing Left to Lose –era Foo Fighters, or the scuttling cowbell additions that I imagine every corporate rock band mimicking on their next album, the album brims with an unexpected freshness. The Melvins have already outlasted their grunge contemporaries, and though the band likely isn’t striving for a place in the heart of the mainstream, with albums as potent as this it’s likely they’ll outlast the current herd of crap rock, too. -Tim Webb