Mike and the Melvins: Three Men and a Baby
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Mike and the Melvins: Three Men and a Baby

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Sometime in the late-’90s godheadSilo’s Mike Kunka found himself at a loose end and decided to hang out, play live and make a record with the Melvins. A lot has happened since then, but the Mike and the Melvins recordings have remained locked in a vault. Until now, that is. Belatedly finished in 2015, Three Men and a Baby is the Mike and the Melvins recording progeny the world’s been waiting for.

It’s not without its difficult moments: the metallic formed Chicken ’n’ Dump is as confronting as the scatological title suggests; Read the Label (It’s Chili) is as ominous as a shot of straight Tabasco and tequila; and the sparse, haunting tones of a Dead Pile of Worthless Junk make Kunka’s own band seem like a bunch of free-wheeling hippies in comparison. The cover of PiL’s Annalisa is two parts post-punk and three parts industrial junk; and Bummer Conversation skips along like a tranquilised speed freak trying to make sense of a fucked up world.

But it’s the sardonic, violent edge that makes Three Men and A Baby so compelling. The grinding electronic noise of Dead Canaries could be a metaphor for the screen-obsessed zombies we’ve all become; A Friend in Need Is a Friend You Don’t Need turfs compassion and charity into the fire quicker than a copy of The Star Observer at a Family First Christmas party. Three Men and a Baby is enlightening, but in a very Melvins sort of way. 

BY PATRICK EMERY