Melvins – Bullhead

Bullhead is the third studio album by American rock band Melvins, released in 1991 through Boner Records. The album has longer songs than previous Melvins albums. Before this, most of their songs were under two or three minutes.

Bullhead captures the Melvins at their most tectonic and hypnotic, stretching their sludge-metal gravity into longer, heavier forms without losing bite. “Boris” lumbers like a monument coming to life, while “Anaconda,” “It’s Shoved,” and “Zodiac” grind with a grimy momentum that still feels startlingly fresh. The trio’s chemistry—Buzz Osborne’s tar-thick riffing, Lori Black’s bulldozing bass, and Dale Crover’s cavernous drums—turns repetition into ritual, so every tempo dip and feedback smear lands with purpose.

What makes Bullhead so satisfying is how it marries brute force with shape and space. Riffs sprawl and then snap tight; grooves emerge from the murk and suddenly swing; vocals leer at the edge of the mix like a fourth instrument. You can hear a blueprint forming for whole branches of sludge, stoner, and drone metal, but the record never plays like homework—it’s lean, direct, and weirdly catchy in its own hulking way.

Rolling Stone named it as the 60th greatest metal album of all time.

Reviews

"Between the groaning syncopated plod of 'Boris' — beat, beat, beat, bend, beat, beat, beat, beat, bend — and the relative brisk organization and feedback of 'Cow,' Bullhead is the clearest exposition of Melvin-hood to that point, and the blueprint for much of what was to follow." – Trouser Press

"The eight-song long Bullhead found the Melvins stretching out a bit more at points, this time allowing the heavily stoned tempos plenty of time to really sprawl all over the place." – AllMusic

"Bullhead and Lysol are tighter, and the Melvins sound much more comfortable on their second Atlantic album—1994's sensual, atmospheric Stoner Witch—whose ambient and noise experiments are far more purposeful and enjoyable." – Pitchfork

"The spare, chugging intensity of this three-piece Seattle noise unit continues to amaze." – Richmond Times-Dispatch