The longer a hiatus is extended, the more unreasonably high expectations will soar.
Ten long years have been pissed away while metal fans waited for Acid King to release a new album. Touring regularly during that period, the Bay Area trio has not been thoroughly inactive, but one can forgive a hesitancy to record. The previous album, 2005’s III, set the standard for stoner sludge and established the band as a slow-mo Sabbath. But following up a classic is a tall order.
A decade after its masterpiece, the group has just released Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere, and it feels like the logical next album. A cynic would criticize the minimal artistic growth in 10 years. But if this LP had found the band widely diverging or considerably evolving, fans would have justifiably complained of not having witnessed the interesting intermediate steps.
Instead, the release continues a clear trend in the band’s sound. On earlier recordings, Lori S.’s singing is presented up front, strident and wailing and aggressive. Over time, she has toned down the verbal posturing, mellowed and integrated her voice more snugly into the music. Set well behind thick layers of sonic gauze, her vocals now float, hover really. In parallel, the band’s sound on Middle has become more psychedelic, dreamier, spacier.
Acid King has become more “mood” than “dude.”
But the thrum of a Harley still runs through the band’s songs. Tonight, the trio plays a selection of the new tracks (“Red River,” “Silent Pictures,” and “Coming Down From Outer Space”), but the crowd pops its biggest boner for the epic “2 Wheel Nation” from the previous disc. Lori’s guitar playing is primarily single notes, but notes so heavily distorted that they carry the weight of mammoth chords.
For the encore, the group performs III’s “War Of The Mind”: the quintessential Acid King song, plodding, powerful and poignant. Expressing a scornful fatalism, the tune drags, which is clearly the whole point. It draws out the pain until the pain hypnotizes. Doom drapes a burial shroud over the listener with the deliberation of descending fog.
But like Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere, it’s well worth the wait.
—Eric Bensel
