Friday night time at Paper Tiger, The Melvins delivered among the best units the Alamo Metropolis has skilled all 12 months.
The legendary punk-metal crossover group has existed in varied iterations for over 40 years and is likely one of the key progenitors of the sludge-metal style. It was preceded within the night’s cavalcade of carnage by California punk-scene stalwarts Redd Kross and native opener Rancid Vat.
Redd Kross — identified for mixing punk, glam, storage, psych and power-pop — carried out a few of its most beloved tunes, similar to “Keep Away From Downtown,” “Annie’s Gone” and a few tracks from its new self-titled album, together with “Stunt Queen.”
At roughly 47 years, Redd Kross has been a band even longer than the Melvins. The 2 teams have been comprised of fifty% the identical members, with bassist-vocalist Steve McDonald and drummer Dale Crover doing double responsibility in each.
This member swapping speaks to Melvins frontman King Buzzo’s fixed experimentation, treating every thing within the band like putty, together with its lineup. As one other experiment, this tour options twin drummers, with Coady Scott Willis of Massive Enterprise and Excessive on Fireplace hitting his package side-by-side with Crover’s on the stage.
The twin drums have been in lock-step all through the night time, transferring the sweating, throbbing mass of individuals with a hypnotizing tribalistic rhythm earlier than breaking up. In the course of the set, Willis and Crover traded off on highly effective drum solos and threw in disparate however complimentary fills.
The crunch of King Buzzo’s guitar ripped by the house as he menacingly stalked the stage, swirling his signature mop of white, wild hair round.
All members, save Willis, wore tunics embroidered with eyes, as in the event that they’re members of a cult conducting a ritualistic sacrifice on the altar of fuzz. Have been we being recruited by this ceremony, or have been we the sacrifice? It felt like each. And the disciples have been keen.
Silently presiding over the ceremony was Star Man Ace Frehley, the late Kiss guitarist, who was featured because the projected background picture behind the band. Between songs, the gang even broke right into a chant of “Ace! Ace!”
The Melvins set touched on varied eras of the group’s prolific profession. “Working the Ditch” from 2024’s Tarantula Coronary heart opened the set, adopted by “The Bloated Pope” from 2004’s Pigs of the Roman Empire. Different in style mid-career tracks included “A Historical past of Dangerous Males” from A Senile Animal.
A number of tracks from the band’s seminal Houdini album naturally made an look, together with “Hag Me,” “Honey Bucket” and “Evening Goat,” which closed out the set.
