The cover is a painting by a doctor by the name of Kevorkian, if you were wondering. Some of you may scoff at the excessively grim tone set out by the lyrics and overall tone of former Louisiana band Acid Bath’s second and final album; for example: “splashing blood upon my soul/crisp black kiss upon my skull.” But within this mostly unknown release there’s a musical complexity that raises it above just plain creepiness. At the core of it, they’re rough as Black Sabbath at their most evil, and dark like the hardest hitting acts of the early nineties (Alice in Chains comes to mind), which leads me to give them the marvellous label of ‘Sludge-Grunge”. Their foundational musical style is the sort you would expect to hear blasting heavily distorted out of a speaker in the dingiest of bars, but they retain a distinct melodic sense that makes them stand out in the filthy ocean of underground hard rock.
For one, Acid Bath picks up little pieces from the farther reaches underground and, uh, surface rock, including a bit of punk, hints of industrial, and the occasional nod to the Swedish death metal scene. Atop that, there emerge unexpected blues touches, likely drawing from their Louisiana influence. Those extra flavours not only add depth to the overall music, but serve nicely to turn the overtly gothic and explicit subject matter into something genuinely unsettling rather than just forced and silly. The chugging chords and moaning, violent vocals also ensure that things stay well away from the whiny territory exemplified by so many mainstream acts today.
In many ways, Acid Bath represented a dying strain of music in their time. Their two-album run was never marked by much branching out or mainstream success, and with the tragic death of bassist Audie Pitre (in an incident entirely unrelated to overdose or suicide, by the way) the band just fell apart and faded into obscurity. Coming just at the tail end of the grunge era, they are technically strong, innovative songwriters who don’t indulge in the overproduction that plagues modern rock. They are uncompromisingly abrasive at times, consistently explicit and ominous, and sometimes blasphemous, all qualities that kept them well away from the charts. And they don’t spend entire songs bitching about how hard their life is, either. Instead, they’re obsessed with mystical talk of sex and death in that creepy-guy-in-the-corner kind of way.
The album itself jumps around a great deal. Opener “Paegan Love Song” would have probably been their first single if they released one, a chugging riff-fest that shows off vocalist Dax Riggs’ low moaning singing style as well as his horrifying screeches he does so well. “Locust Spawning” is a brutal trip straight to Hell, ruthlessly hard and aggressive, while “New Death Sensations” is a creepy, gothic ballad. The album closes on their most bluesy note, with the fully acoustic “Dead Girl”, a track whose mournful tone highlights Riggs’ melodic groan and the band’s southern style. It’s almost a crime that is has yet to be used in a zombie film. And speaking of crimes, while it’s no surprise that Acid Bath is largely unknown but for its cult following today, that doesn’t mean they deserve to fade into obscurity. Just as long as you don’t offend easily or cower from loud noises, rock this one out.