This new vinyl reissue of Melvins' classic 1992 album Houdini came out last year but went out of stock/print in a flash, before we could even nab any for C-Blast; it's finally been repressed, and we've grabbed that along with all of the other recent Melvins vinyl reissues that have come out on Third Man (Stag, Stoner Witch). These reissues look and sound fantastic, all pressed on 180 gram vinyl and presented in gatefold jackets that keep all of the original artwork and sleeve designs - along with those new "solo album" reissues that just came out on Boner, this all adds up to a banner year if you've been looking to fill some huge holes in your Melvins vinyl collection.

An iconic record in the field of extreme music. It's a hall-of-famer. A lot of the past writing on Houdini refers to this album as one of Melvins' most accessible, and it certainly did appear at a key moment to introduce the band to a huge new audience when it originally appeared in the early 90s. Heralded by none other than Kurt Cobain (whose rising star helped get Melvins the major-label attention that led to this release) and released at the peak of the "grunge" eruption, this record boils down the band's signature brand of oddball sludge-rock into one of their more focused and *grokable* works, a masterwork of push-pull tension.

The one-two punch of "Hooch" and "Night Goat" kicks the door down at the start, a pair of classic tunes, both as subtle as a battering ram as they set the stage for Houdini's rumbling sound-waves, huge droning down-tuned riffage and hooky bellowing vocals wrapped tight around a crushing groove. Goddamnit, "Goat" is one of the heaviest motherfucking songs of the 1990s, straight up. There is a very small list of tunes that are as dark and destructive and eminently hummable as this drone-metal beast. All facets of Melvins' sludgepunk pummel are on display though, from the brooding twang of "Lizzy" that crawls around Buzzo's muted croon and settles you into this misplaced sense of tranquility right before the band drops another jackhammer riff on your head. Talk about dynamics. and the pleading emotional drama of "Going Blind"'s impassioned, sludgy, prog-tinged take on 70's Southern Rock, in turn becoming another amazingly infectious gloom-anthem; the pulverizing riff-riot of "Honey Bucket" that immediately goes into spazz overload, a roiling mass of power chords and frenetic drumming that's all instrumental before it suddenly shape-changes into one of the album's most ferocious head-bangin riffs, holy shit this is a metalpunk pit-inciter; the Sabbath-gone-punk downer anthems "Set Me Straight" and "Teet"; "Joan Of Arc" roiling in on a drone rock throb before turning into another one of the heaviest motherfucking sonic beatdowns on Houdini; the drug-addled lurch of "Sky Pup" that soars into some wildly funky, psychedelic territory sorta like a War jam being played by radioactive mutants; the nutty typewriter-rhythm industrial freak-out / bass guitar workout "Pearl Bomb"; the torturous, dragged-out, slithering drone-metal of "Hag Me"that slowly buries you under a half mile of asphalt, the jagged chug bent and twisted, the song sucking every bit of oxygen out of the surrounding space; this song uis one of those watershed moments that inspired the entire galaxy of "extreme doom" bands that started coming down the pike a few years later. While "Set Me Straight" sounds like some sunny Californian power pop dunked in wet concrete and wrapped in barned wire.

Riffs. riffs. So many glorious riffs. So much rib-cracking heaviness amidst bouts of provocative fuckery. Drums like titan-hammers, the production giving every instrument a massive amount of space and weight; this has got to be one of Melvins' most punishing outings ever - fucking caveman sludge assault, every riff flattening you like a pneumatic machine, just locking into the perfect destructo-dirge zone. This album is so rocking, so catchy, so brutal, it's easy for me to just rave and drool all over this fuckin' LP. And you gotta remember, these guys were most definitely poking fun at heavy metal with this stuff - clowning on the absurdity of metal's bombast and theatricality, while stripping everything about down to the most basic , most bulldozing heaviness that easily out-crushed many metal bands of the time. It's an ultimate fuck you, and fuck off. While not as daring as some of the albums that would begin to appear later in the decade, this one is still one of their best, brimming over with enough molten chug to choke an ape, full of weird dead-end riffs, grating feedback fuckery, and some of the sickest sauropod sludge-crunch of their career. Wraps up with a snarling, blown-out cover of MC5's "Rocket Reducer #62 (Rama Lama Fafafa)" that kicks mucho ass and drops shit-hot boogie on ya , and which is a replacer for the 10 minute experimental percussion number "Spread Eagle Beagle" that was on the CD version. Kinda sucks, as I love "Beagle"'s Cage-ian oil-drum ritual symphony of clank and thud, but I’m sure I'm in a minority there. Also of note - you get guest spots from Cobain himself on guitar and percussion, and Billy Anderson on bass.

If you didn't pick up on it yet, this album is essential Melvins, every fan needs it on their shelf. The returns are far from diminishing. Good christ.