Lysol (album)
| Lysol | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 1992 | |||
| Recorded | 1991 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 31:21 | |||
| Label | Boner, Tupelo Records | |||
| Melvins chronology | ||||
| ||||
Lysol (also known as Melvins, Untitled and Lice-All) is the fourth studio album by American heavy metal band Melvins, released in November 1992 via Boner Records.
The album cover is based on Appeal to the Great Spirit, a 1908 sculpture by Cyrus Edwin Dallin, which also inspired the cover of The Beach Boys in Concert, the logo of the Beach Boys' Brother Records label, and the cover of The Time Is Near by the Keef Hartley Band.
The album consists of six separate tracks which were mastered and assembled as one continuous "megacomposition". Among the six tracks are covers of Flipper's "Sacrifice" (from the album Gone Fishin') and Alice Cooper's "Second Coming" and "The Ballad of Dwight Fry",[3] both from the album Love It to Death. The album has been credited as an influence on the drone metal subgenre and specifically the work of Sunn O))).[1] As of 2024, the album has not been added to streaming services.
Title[edit]
Boner Records was unaware that Lysol was a registered trademark until after the first batch of record jackets and CD booklets had already been printed. Lehn & Fink sent a staff member to go undercover as an interviewer for a magazine to find out information about the record, as they did not want the Lysol name on the album. Boner then officially retitled the record Melvins and covered the word Lysol with black tape on the front of the jackets and booklets and with black ink on the spines. Early after the initial release, the tape and ink were easily removed, and many fans did so; later on, attempting to remove the tape would result in severe damage to the packaging. Subsequent printings omitted the word "Lysol" entirely.[3][4]
On January 20, 2015, Boner re-released the album in a double-LP combo with the band's 1991 EP Eggnog. The title was changed to "Lice-All", presumably to avoid legal conflict but maintain phonetic recognition.[5]
Reception[edit]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [3] |
AllMusic critic Ned Raggett called Lysol "the logical extension of the sheer monstrosity of the band's work up to that time, with longer and longer songs," and highlighted "Hung Bunny" and "Roman Dog Bird" as "jawdroppers".[3] Ira Robbins of Trouser Press described the album as "weird and wonderful", stating: "the first half is a big gulp of guitar distortion into which the rhythm section weighs in from time to time; at the twelve-minute mark, the arrival of a steady beat and vocals shape it into a bone-crushing mother of a song."[4]
Track listing[edit]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Hung Bunny" | Buzz Osborne | 10:42 |
| 2. | "Roman Dog Bird" | Osborne | 7:38 |
| 3. | "Sacrifice" (Flipper cover) | Will Shatter | 6:11 |
| 4. | "Second Coming" (Alice Cooper cover) | Alice Cooper | 1:14 |
| 5. | "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" (Alice Cooper cover) | Michael Owen Bruce, Cooper | 3:11 |
| 6. | "With Teeth" | Osborne | 2:26 |
No edition of the album gives a track listing. On CD and digital releases of the album, all six songs are indexed as one continuous track.
Personnel[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ a b Gardner, Noel (October 2, 2009). "Melvins - Chicken Switch review". Drowned in Sound. Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
- ^ Earles, Andrew (March 31, 2015). "The Revival of Cherubs". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Raggett, Ned. "Lysol review". AllMusic. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
- ^ a b Robbins, Ira. "Melvins". Trouser Press. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
- ^ "The Melvins Resurrect Early Material for New Vinyl Reissues". Exclaim. Retrieved November 20, 2014.
