Acid King‘s third album, III, starts out with a a low growl from Lori S.‘s guitar and then then roars like a motorcycle tearing out of a haunted gas station at 3am just before the burning Molotov cocktails you left behind blow up the place to bury the curse on the place for another hundred years.
And that’s just the first track (“2 Wheel Nation”).
Guy Pinhas‘ bass on “Heavy Load” is pretty much the backhoe dropping a couple tons of broken concrete into the hole where the haunted gas station had been. The first song is a salute to bikers, and the second is a salute to truckers – both of whom see things most of us never see on dark roads during long nights. “Bad Vision” is a tale of malevolent spirits just on the other side of the void and has thunderous drumming from Joey Osbourne.
“War of the Mind” is the colossal centerpiece of III, clocking in at nearly twelve minutes as Lori S. calls for people to cast off their mental and physical shackles. It rumbles inside your body and the heavy, deep chords (along with Osbourne’s growling drum fills) give you the strength to get up when you’re feeling the weight of the world on you.
“Into the Ground” seems to be another tribute to late night desert driving (“Four wheels keep on turning into the ground.”), but in some sort of Mad Max-style world where its survival of the fittest or the smartest. Lori S.’s solo on this one is a standout. “On to Everafter” takes on one of the favorite subjects of doom / stoner metal – death (“Here comes the knife. Comes to me closer, faster than life…Leaves close the sight, covers me over, closer to light.”). The song, somehow, takes on a heavier, sludgier feel than previous tracks. I don’t know how Acid King do it.
The album ends with “Sunshine and Sorrow,” in which Lori S. sings about going into a haze to escape the dread of facing another day that masks sadness in beauty (“What’s in a day? Sunshine and sorrow. Haze leads the way.”). It’s difficult to determine which of the three are hitting it harder on the final track. Lori S.’s guitar sounds like a burning jet engine at points, while Osbourne is crushing everything around him and Pinhas is trying to split the Earth with his bass riffs.
This album came out a little over twenty years ago and it still lands harder than most metal albums out today.
Keep your mind open.
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