Pick of the week: Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

I originally meant to write this months ago but didn't have time or didn't feel up to it. Mostly, I guess, I didn't have time. But here it is now!

I originally found out about Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats through an IRC channel I frequent. Someone posted a youtube link for "Death's Door" and I was convinced. I promptly ordered the cd-r edition of Blood Lust that was out at the time, only to sell it to someone else after it had sold out and I'd acquired myself a copy of the vinyl edition, which also had sold out by that time. And now it's out again, on cd, released by the band's own label, Killer Candy, and distributed by Svart Records.


Anyway, onto the music. For it is a lot like it came straight from the sixties or seventies. I'm no expert on those decades, but I hear echoes of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple on Blood Lust, with lyrics that take Sabbath's flirtation with the occult and turn it into full-on embrace, not unlike what Electric Wizard have been doing lately. Lyrically, Ghost might be an apt comparison, but musically Uncle Acid sounds rawer, dirtier and, in my opinion, simply better.

I suppose this kind of music somehow trendy these days, and some people urge us to listen to the original seventies bands instead of these modern day retro acts, but I think an important element in the sound of Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is that they live in a world where the 80s, 90s and 00s have happened, and it has contributed to how they approach their music. In other words, this band's music couldn't have been made much earlier.

Blood Lust is available as CD from Svart Records.