Melon – Never Eat on an Empty Stomach

I’m going to be completely forthright; I’ve never heard of “stoner rock” as a genre qualification.  I’ve heard of slack-rock, math-rock, art-rock, but never stoner-rock.  Though I somewhat resent the idea of a subset of music being grouped in terms of a state of mind that has nothing to do with the actual sound that’s being labeled (genre-labeling being an unfair practice, in general) I can’t seem to escape the term as I scoured the web for information about Melon’s newest LP Never Eat on an Empty Stomach.

Never Eat on an Empty Stomach is loud, somewhat aimless, and residing in the awkward spot somewhere between jam music and metal.  Though there’s some interesting points on the record, like the sludgy, pummeling “Dr. Pons” and the towering instrumental track “The Shiny Beast,” most of Never Eat on an Empty Stomach never seems entirely cohesive or compelling.  The record’s songs seem to flow nicely into one another, a suite of hazy, riff-heavy songs.  The vocals soar a little more when they don’t completely dive into the scream-o end up the spectrum.  At the same time, the record is easily clogged with too much fuzz and an unclear focus.

When Never Eat on an Empty Stomach plunges into it’s latter half, beginning with a too-straight-on cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Commotion,” pinning down the record’s essence only gets more difficult.  “Mad Man” is a promising stomp that ends much too quickly, clocking in well south of two minutes, that strangely segues right into a spare and creepy piano interlude.  “Surreal Mannequin” is a slow building, early-period Foo Fighters-channeling song that acts as a bridge to the proggy sprawl of “Nowhere,” a reverb-soaked freewheeling jam, and perhaps the album’s high point.

If more of Never Eat on an Empty Stomach was like the record’s last ten minutes, this whole conversation would be much different.  Somewhat captured on the album’s first instrumental track, “Shiny Beast,” the instruments on “Nowhere” seem to find a nice balance; the percussion’s solid and supportive, the guitars are toned down a little and swirling, the vocals clean and locking into a simple melody before the song’s proper climax.  Though I’m not crazy about the song’s last two or three minutes, a digital digression into a programmed drum track and circling synth lines, I can appreciate it’s intended effect, an interesting third act of a well-developed song.

Though I’m not sure what stoner rock is, exactly, I’d like to imagine the label is representative of the parts of “Never Eat on an Empty Stomach” that I don’t like, the exaggerated guitars and the prog-rock clichés that pervade the record’s low points.  However, there’s room for growth and endless room for tightening and more captivating songwriting.

There’s a lot to admire on Melon’s Never Eat on an Empty Stomach—including the “pay-what-you-want” method of distribution—but it’s much too often bogged down by the boring and clichéd.