Houdini (reissue) vinyl

Considering how much most modern rockers don't talk about the Melvins, or Melvins as the Washington staters should technically be referred to, it's insane how much influence they had on the development of late-20th Century guitar sounds. Without Dale Crover, Buzz Osborne and Steven Shane McDonald, we're not sure there would have been grunge at all. Kicking but not screaming out of the Pacific Northwest in 1983 (at which time Mike Dillard was playing drums, later replaced by Crover), Houdini is their fifth studio album and by this point they'd more than found that legendary groove. Sludgy, thick, stompy and a little bit swampy, these are the riffs that inspire limbs to move of their own accord, setting the tone for a range of bands from Soundgarden and Nirvana to Tool, Sun O))) and Slipknot.