ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Acid Reich ‘Mistress Of The Perpetual Harvest’
(Mental Experience) 14th may 2021
From the bums on a turd ride book of liberal kool aid goofing, and just one of the various acid soaked experiments that birthed a behemoth, arrives a scuzz wreckage of early rambled psych nonsense attached to the founding fathers of Monster Magnet.
Miscreants John McBain, Dave Wyndorf and Tim Cronin, aided by Ripping Corpse’s Shaune Kelly and hellsausage’s Joe Paone would have probably gotten away with this drug-fueled ridiculous echoplex pedaled Floydian slip if it hadn’t been for those pesky crate diggers of such missives as Steve Krakow (aka linear notes provider Plastic Crimewave) and the Mental Experience label.
Past crimes it seems can never be erased; even if the home recorded, privately pressed Acid Reich sessions proved an incubator for what was to come. Unsurprisingly then, this is the first ever proper sanctioned release of this 1989 artifact; a mildly amusing fuzzed up trash can of drudge rock, heavy me(n)tal, krautrock and of course liquid acid tripping. As future (though the wait was mere months) Monster Magnet guitarist McBain nailed the vibe just right: “We sounded like Amon Düül with Uli Jon Roth sitting in.” And before readers start scuttling off to look that reference up, Roth was part of the Teutonic heavyweights Scorpion.
You can add to description a heavy dose of 60s drug exploitation movies (when it wasn’t quite yet passé to have a giggle or seem both provocative and hip to take the piss out of public broadcast bewilderment and paranoia), a Mogadon slipped Hawkwind, stone age primal Rubbles drumming, The Stooges, Deviants, Cream and the debauched mayhem of Leary indoctrination.
Ironic or in homage, I can’t decide, but this tripping cast of loons channel Surrealist Pillow era Jefferson meets Country Joe and Roky Erickson in covering that Woodstock era reignited borrowed anthem, ‘Amazing Grace’. And yes that really is a second cover version of Floyd’s hallucinatory cosmic psych opus ‘Set The Controls From The Heart Of The Sun’ you can hear: albeit a lot worse that the original by light years.
This is one spiked chalice of an acid album; a maelstrom of heavy riffage, vocals that border on the daemonic, and pummelled beats from the dungeons at the Whisky a Go Go. From beyond the calico wall indeed, all of this is drenched, enveloped in a soup of echo; played on all the right vintage gear (both instrument and amplification wise; and I suspect drug wise too) in a state of languid but devilish fun. Monster Magnet fans will be delighted I expect at the evolution; for the rest of us, well it will turn heads in the “heads” community for sure. It’s a heap of fuzz acid shit: but a great piece of fuzz acid shit!
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
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