• Rating:
Ferocity, desolation. Contrasting sensations, but too easy to perceive. I am convinced that when a song manages to perfectly empathize with a certain state of mind, no musical genre can hold you back. So let's be clear from the start: ferocity, desolation: this is what awaits you. Yes, because trying to place Dax Riggs' former band in a specific genre becomes quite a daunting task. It's a bit like following the directions of various road signs, convinced you're heading in the right direction, only to find yourself somewhere completely different, lost and pissed off like a beast. Yet the elements, the "directions to follow" to try and decipher their sound are all there. In essence, to cut it short, you just need to listen to: "Bleed Me An Ocean", track number two.
But didn't Mudhoney only like the Stooges and Blue Cheer? Since when did they put up a poster of Tony Iommi in the recording studio? And what's Al Cisneros doing there in the middle? Oh look, it seems he brought his bass along...
More or less a nice picture of junkies, nothing to add. Yes, nothing to add because it's pointless to warn you with a sign: "Attention Sludge Danger!", maybe with Mike Williams' face instead of the exclamation mark. Yeah well it's sludge, but within the album you'll also hear: grunge, stoner-metal, even death. Just to reiterate the concept, to the question: "is there a band that somehow approaches/has approached the sound of Acid Bath?", the answer is no, there never has been either before them or after them. Not comparable to the genre that the Melvins invented, not comparable to what Neurosis have gradually, let's say: "progressed". Lethal intuition then. Six guys from New Orleans who, in the span of two years (1994-1996), made one beautiful album after another.
Then it happens that the bassist dies and so the ride ends, but the awareness of having created something unique remains. The voice and the words by Dax, whether held back or spat out in all their atrocity, remain something unforgettable. The melody, the void, alternating with the most thunderous explosions, those pure ones. Beyond a musical genre, nothing more than music for states of mind. Everything else is superfluous.
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