Review Summary: Something of an unknown gem. Quality ranges within the duration of the album, but the recording promises great things that were sadly never to come to life.
There is unfortunately not much information I can provide the reader about Acrid. They were a Canadian band, apparenlty comprised of Jeff Almond - guitar, Kyle Bishop - guitar, Alexandra Lamoureux - bass, Mike Maxymuik - drums and Neil Rodman - vocals. During their short career they released the
Sea Of Shit EP and an LP called
Eighty-Sixed.
What I am about to review here is the re-release of their sole full-length,
Eighty-Sixed, which actually is the aforementioned LP, with the SOS EP tracks added in the end.
If someone wanted to give a single label to the band's sound, I think that
sludge would do them right. A band seemigly stemming from the hardcore side of extreme music, who however chose to artfully dress their inner ugliness and hatred with music, instead of the emotional breakdowns, desperation and wrath the genre usually serves.
You won't find anything else here, just ugliness. And this alone could be enough to grant them with the tag of sludge. Riffs like the ones introducing Slow Death, or Collapse, could have easily found their place in a St Vitus album, or any other great doom metal band. However, the tracks unfold in a way that distance themselves from the doom metal genre. The sound here is heavy and slow, but sometimes bursting into violent passages, featuring blastbeats any black metal band would envy and bone breaking mid tempo sections, all featuring those really totally undecipherable but EVIL vocals. Too shrieky for a hardcore band, too deep and growled for a black metal band, Rodman's contribution is easily one of the most extreme vocal performances I have ever heard.
In Synaptic Overload you will hear what to me sounds like a violent emo song slowed down to 50% or more and covered by Burzum. In Slow Death you will hear a huge doom metal monster, built on a massive, epic riff, made to sound as ugly, hateful and appalling it gets. Kisses & Whistles turns the pace up, with a (do I have to say that?) powerviolence sound, devastating speed on the drums and a vocalist still breathing hatred in his usual slow and drawn out manner, as if nothing is going on in the background. Collapse combines the slow doomy pace with devastating outbursts and Sking Beyond Skin offers a wiked combination the closest thing to melody you will find here with torturing heaviness and violence and changing pace.
I believe that special mention should be made to the drummer who, throughout the recording, manages to stand out with his imaginative, ever-changing playing, an achievement made even more impressive if one thinkgs of the slow paces dominating this album.
The song
Aphazia starts the second part of the compilation - the songs out of the SOS EP. The sound here is less heavy, more hardcore-oriented, and the speed rarely drops under the mid tempo limit - with the exception of Panic and the aforementioned song, which is a typical, ruthless sludge anthem, which I am sure all iron Monkey and the alike fans will appreciate. Acrid's sound here leans more towards their, errmm,
Powerviolence side - I can't believe I am using this ludicrous term for the second time, but I'll try to put up with it for the sake of communication. Without being of bad quality, the tracks here are obviously inferior to the preceding ones, faling to capture the unique and intense expression of inner evil and ugliness the songs out of
Eighty-Sixed express. An interesting listen still, its comparison however to what the listener has experienced before seems to be condemning.
