Joe Preston

The Joe Preston figure has always fascinated me, I'm far from liking all of his work, but I do remember that when I first discovered Melvins the period that most caught my attention was the brief time he was in the band. And as if it was the result of a miracle, Joe Preston was there at the time when Melvins decided to make a tribute/parody to Kiss with these individual EPs and give us all the opportunity to hear Joe Preston solo work for the first time.

If in the other EPs we found influences from hardcore punk, heavy metal and grunge, here we find one of the first and legitimate drone metal acts in history, there is little to comment on the short songs "The Eagle Has Landed" or "Bricklebrit" but they are examples of short songs with movie samples that he would end up using in his Thrones project. Here the important piece is the anti-epic "Hands First Flower", I say so because despite lasting the same length as Genesis' "Supper's Ready" it is the complete opposite of such a song, Joe Preston's lengthy song is one of the first great examples of drone metal, and contrary to what Melvins showed in their famous "Lysol" there is no percussion here, for some this was risky, for others a mistake, but without a doubt this was a song that set a precedent in what would become the sound of the genre.

"Hands First Flower" opens in an ominous way to introduce after a few moments the first guitar hits overwhelmed by the insane use of the pedal, the theme progresses slowly, terse, it is incredibly repetitive, you could say it is atmospheric but it seems more like it immerses you in a heavy world where uncontrolled electricity reigns, you feel that you are in a moment where something as ancient and ancestral as music itself has joined with the progress of technology to show the future of sound in the most minimalist way possible. "Hands First Flower" broke the silence that surrounded me in a way I had never felt before, the first time I listened to it I lost the notion of time and that twenty three minutes track seemed like hours, not because it was boring, but because I got completely lost in its universe of high sound distortion, all this while I contemplated the drawn image of who had created it, a man who hid most of his face under a shaggy hair, glasses and shadows, it was hypnotic, it was unique.

Over time I discovered more examples of drone, drone metal, doom drone etc, and going back to this work the truth is that it feels less special, even though it hasn't aged super well it still has a historical relevance for the development of music, and above all it has a relevance for me personally. Many say that the best of these three Eps is the Dale Crover's one, and there are legitimate reasons to believe so, but I always end up going back to "Hands First Flower", I always end up going back to the dark domains of Joe Preston...