Mike and the Melvins are unleashing an album worth waiting sixteen years for. Three Men and a Baby, the long-awaited collaboration between Mike Kunka of godheadSilo and Enemymine and the Melvins, features twelve songs recorded in 1999 at Louder Studios by Tim Green and finished in 2015 at Sound of Sirens by Toshi Kasai.

In 1998, bassist and vocalist Mike Kunka joined the Melvins – guitarist and vocalist King Buzzo, drummer Dale Crover, and bassist Kevin Rutmanis – on tour while the noise rock band godheadSilo went on hiatus. Along the way, the four musicians joined forces to create a collaborative record enthusiastically funded by Sub Pop. A press release explains what the supergroup experienced throughout the years:

It’s at this point that things get hazy. Apparently, one or more of the following happened:

Some “junior-high level bullshit.”
A house was built, a barn was raised, children were born.
Typical record-label skullduggery.
A scorching case of whooping cough.
Surgery. Lots of surgery.
Shocking and poorly-timed gear theft.
Some other stuff, probably, or maybe not.

Whatever the reasons, the incomplete recording languished on a shelf from 1999 until 2015, when, much to everyone’s surprise, the involved parties reconvened, finished the damn thing, and delivered it post-haste to Sub Pop International Headquarters, where it was promptly scheduled for the coveted April 1st, 2016 release date. What a story, right?

Three Men and a Baby features Kunka’s “signature bass crunch and vocals” as the highly-anticipated release spans “everything from hefty noise-rock churn to a Public Image Ltd. song to cough-syrup blues to deconstructed black metal”. Its acclaimed single “Chicken ‘n’ Dump” was praised by Noisey as a track that “delivers on the promise of the Kunka/Melvins pairing, fixing Mike’s hellacious, chugging low end to Buzz Osborne and the boys’ thick racket, banging out a riff as joyous and as it is punishing”.

The Melvins toured the US with Big Business in 2015 in support of their latest album, Hold It In, that includes support from members of the band Butthole Sufers, Paul Leary and JD Pinkus. The band also made a movie about their attempt to tour the states in only 51 days.