Melvins

No other band to emerge from the punk/alternative underground has mined Black Sabbath's slow, monolithic roar with greater effect than the Melvins, and they have proven to be wildly influential despite barely breaking out of cult status. The drop-D tunings and brontosaurus stomp of grunge icons such as Tad, Mudhoney, and Soundgarden would be unthinkable without the trails the Melvins blazed, and Kurt Cobain often sang their praises, helping them land their first major-label recording deal in 1993. They became a bridge between the edges of the punk and metal communities, who would find greater common ground from the '90s onward. (Their debut EP, 1986's 6 Songs, found them wavering between speedier punk-oriented numbers and full-on heaviness, but by 1991's Bullhead, the Melvins' trademark gargantuan sound was firmly in place.) While the Melvins proved as recognizable as any band of their day, they were also more creatively flexible than nearly all their peers, willing to experiment with different styles (the massive suite on 1992's Melvins [aka Lysol], the ambitious studio experimentation of 1996's Stag, the noisy soundscapes in 2017's A Walk with Love and Death, the offbeat compositional concepts of 2024's Tarantula Heart), and a variety of musical configurations (multiple guest vocalists on 2000's The Crybaby, using two drummers on 2006's A Senile Animal, a rotating team of bassists on 2016's Basses Loaded, and adding pop and groove accents on 2022's Bad Mood Rising), all of which helped them remain productive and prolific more than three decades after they launched.

From 🇺🇸 United States