Whether conceived as a well-crafted musical prank, homage, or method of seeing what each member could cough up, the
Melvins mirrored
Kiss in endeavoring solo albums by everyone in the band. And, like
Kiss, the
Melvins employed the same cover art style and lettering. Hmmm? Perhaps an homage, or joke, it's tough to tell.
King Buzzo is the strongest of the three, and certainly the most akin to an actual
Melvins album.
"Isabella" opens with a pummeling, repeated drum line, some distorted guitar chugging, and
Buzzo vocalizing something over the maelstrom. Track two is a strange, quasi-
industrial loop; while
"Annum" is a slight piece of understated
pop. The final track, like track one, benefits from similarly loud drumming, although the vocals are in narrative form. Who provides that narration and drumming? Why,
Dave Grohl of
Nirvana and
Foo Fighters, who had known
Buzzo for quite some time. Oddly enough, here he is credited as
Dale Nixon, due to legal issues with
Nirvana's label,
Geffen. As an interesting note,
Dale Nixon was the name
Black Flag used on
My War for the bass player who wasn't:
Greg Ginn played both guitar and bass, but credited the mysterious, non-existent
Dale Nixon with that duty. ~ Patrick Kennedy