Montesano, WA · sludge metal · noise rock · sludge-metal · noise-rock

Melvins

2 upcoming festivals

Forty years of deliberately difficult, punishingly slow riffs — and the band Nirvana learned from, still outweirding everyone downstream.

The Melvins formed in Montesano, Washington, in 1983 around guitarist and vocalist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover, with the bass position changing hands many times over the decades. Their early records slowed hardcore punk to a crawl, and that heaviness became a template for sludge metal and an acknowledged influence on the Washington bands that followed, Nirvana among them.

Rather than settle into a formula, the group has released a large and deliberately uneven body of work spanning drone, noise, garage rock and outright experiments, sometimes with two drummers or with members of other bands folded into the lineup. They tour persistently and have collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Jello Biafra and members of Big Business.

sludge metalnoise rocksludge-metalnoise-rock