Joe Preston

In the second of my Melvins solo EP reviews, I'm covering the only other Melvins CD I own (the other is Stag, my favorite album of theirs). Now, I'd like to just say that I bought this purely because of Joe Preston. His work with Earth, Thrones, and of course the Melvins had a huge impact on me, and I still look back fondly on these works. A lot of my middle school hesher days were ruled by stoner rock and drone doom. And this oddity of a record eventually came into my possession during the early days of my music collecting.

Joe Preston comes off as a really chill dude, honestly. From his interviews to his onstage banter, he seems like a modest dude, someone who moved beyond the grunge heyday and found his niche. Good for him, and on the plus side, his time with the Melvins resulted in two awesome releases: the controversially-titled Lysol (or Lice-all if we go by the recent vinyl re-release), and this bizarre self-titled solo EP.

Three tracks, a runtime under a half hour. With each stranger than the last, Joe Preston is fascinatingly weird. Where King Buzzo was a half-baked mix of actual songwriting and dicking around, Joe's outing is him workshopping some unique ideas. I assume it's been previously noted by fans, but the DNA of what would become Thrones is all over this; from using samples to heavy drone, to sonic sludge and drum machine tomfoolery. 'The Eagle Has Landed' is an uncomfortable sound collage of jazz music, a campfire, and a crying child. 'Bricklebrit' and 'Hands First Flower' are dedicated to outright heaviness, albeit in two different flavours. The former is Thrones-esque heavy riffing with processed percussion on top. A fun ditty, although there is very little variation to groove with.

The latter, though... holy shit. 'Hands First Flower' is a monster of early drone doom, a fuzzy monolith that predates Earth's Earth 2 - Special Low Frequency Version by almost a whole year, and Sunn O)))'s The Grimrobe Demos by eight. However, it feels like an afterthought of Lysol; plodding, no percussion, a few weird noises, it can get tedious without those little embellishes that makes Earth and Sunn O))) and the Melvins track 'Hung Bunny' interesting and/or fun to listen to. Still, it has an ambient quality that'll help more hardened genre fans appreciate it more. I know I did.

Joe Preston is strange. It seems clear (to me, at least) that Joe was working on some new level when concocting this oddball EP. The man's contributions to drone and sludge are, without a doubt, important. If not immediately impressive. But everything here is half-formed, like on King Buzzo. The ideas that would make Joe Preston great wouldn't come to fruition until Thrones had taken off, a project with a highly recommended discography. Still, I have a fondness for this wacky little EP, and I can't say it's not without musical, or even historical, merit. Just, don't expect this to be anything beyond a mere curio.