Buzz Osborne ‘This Machine Kills Artists’

Words by Sean Walsh

Ah, The Melvins. Wait, stop right there. This is not that.

This is however a crisp, dark and chilling acoustic tale told by “King Buzzo” (Roger ‘Buzz’ Osborne) in a debut solo effort. Right from the very start, the mood is set with the dreary and revolting title of “Dark Brown Teeth” conjuring up images of early 90’s heroin addicts living in houses reflective of the grandiose and ever-expanding-self-imploding downward spiral. It is a rough, and often uncomfortable experience to sit alone with our thoughts, even amidst the cloud of song, and really feel the solitude that rides along with drop-D.

King Buzzo’s vocal additions encapsulate that same sense of frenetic and demonic mysticism…crazy warped and distorted by the times, the cult-like tendencies seep in at every chance they get. Ghostly chants haunt their way through “Drunken Baby” and “Laid Back Walking” and invite you to join and follow them through the acoustic apparitions being engendered before your very eyes and ears. Ghostly, yeah, and it should be no surprise that this effort sounds slightly aged, beaten, retribution-seeking and weathered, because The Melvins have been killing it for like, what, 87 years now?

This Machine Kills Artists is an ode to a time when people listened to the emotions that were emanated from a free-strummed guitar, yet unmodified by the distorted gods of the electronic heavens, instead of a time where its youth prefers feeding themselves a bunch of substances they are not currently educated on and wasting away in front of an electronic-eye-fucking-wanderlust of percussive repetition and unreachable chemical equations.

Kids need more acoustic guitars in their lives anyway…or maybe just even a nice kick in the ass, so they can really feel just how shitty and worthless their electronically-enslaving lives have become. Tune up, turn-up, and un-plug yourselves every once in a while, because sometimes it’s just better acoustic.