- Three Men & A Baby is an oddity, not just because it’s a Melvins album or a reference to an absurd eighties comedy, but because there’s no reason for it to exist, or not exist actually. In fact, it’s kind of the record equivalent of Schrödinger's cat, only, when they opened the box, instead of a hypothetical animal they found twelve tracks of classic weirdness.

Originally recorded in 1999 by the Fucking Champs' Tim Green and intended as the collaborative debut of Mike Kunka (of godheadSilo) and The Melvins, the album disappeared inexplicably for sixteen years until it rematerialized just as randomly in 2015 to be finished off by Toshi Kasai. The reasons given literally range from, “Junior-high level bullshit,” to, “Some other stuff, probably, or maybe not,” which is either ludicrously dismissive or joyously optimistic in the way of parents who are just happy to have their child returned to them no questions asked.

Either way, the album definitely feels like the product of its time, not old necessarily or even outdated, but in more of a ‘90’s time-capsule way. There’s something preserved in it that feels like a slice of auditory idealism cut clean from the heyday of experimental noise rock. That said, most of the tracks sound more like songs than a lot of The Melvins’ output from that era. No doubt it’s partly due to Kunka’s sludgy but melodic bass playing, though it seems more like the collaboration simply worked to keep both sides balanced. There’s still plenty of abstraction and WTF in there though.

You can see it in tracks like Art School Fight Song, essentially a single chord reverb disturbed by spasmodic percussion and whisper roars, or Dead Canaries, a track that initially feels cribbed from the Les Claypool playbook until it winds itself down into deranged laughter and segues into A Dead Pile of Worthless Junk, a track that plays something like Nick Cave on laudanum (which, PS, would probably be an amazing concept project for the gothic prince).

Overall, Three Men & A Baby is actually a pretty easy listen. It never devolves in the way that some experimental music can, and strangely, it feels more genuine for its prolonged and inexplicable absence. If it had been released at the intended time, the album would surely have been popular with the circles that get down to The Melvins' rhythmic discord, but brought to light in the current clime, it’s not just a delightful memento of different days but solidly contemporary too. In many ways, it’s a weird, angry and perverse album, but it’s cute despite the weight of it and radiates the warm satisfaction of a recovered keepsake.

- Nic Addenbrooke.