#buzzoven

LIVE IN NAWLINS -- A BOOZY, GOOD TIME WAS MORE THAN LIKELY HAD BY ALL.

PIC(S) INFO: Mega spotlight on a photo-dump of American sludge metal band BUZZOV*EN, performing live at an unnamed dive bar in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, c. late 1990s, during the band's "At a Loss" era (with Dave "Dixie" Collins on bass guitar/whiskey breath vokills).

atalossalbumic

[pt: atalossalbumic. /end pt]

a gender related to, influenced by or defined by the buzzov·en album at a loss

i picked the colours directly from the album cover.

coined by me, flag by me

Acid Bath: When the Kite String Pops (1994)

Placing a painting by convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy on your album cover (that’s his alter ego, Pogo the Clown) would never, EVER fly today, and it was controversial enough decades ago when Acid Bath’s When the Kite String Pops was originally released.

But then, skirting controversy instead of instigating it is one of the reasons why rock ‘n’ roll is “mom and dad’s music” now, instead of a vital youth movement like hip hop -- after all, kids get into music, in part, to piss off their parents, but that’s another rant/thesis.

More to the point, the southern sludge scene had become a force by '94, with charter bands like Crowbar, Eyehategod, Buzzoven and Soilent Green in peak form by the time Acid Bath arrived to shake things up, finding new extremes to explore on this stone-cold sludgecore landmark.

True to the band’s name, the guitars of Sammy ‘Pierre’ Duet and Mike Sanchez were corrosive to the bone, but not even as unnerving as the lyrics intoned by Dax Riggs – sometimes with a vulnerable, melodious treble, more often with a variety of coarse roars and shrieks.

This dynamic variety was also reflected in Acid Bath’s music, and the album’s very first number, “The Blue,” is a perfect case in point, as it technically consists of four or five songs jammed into one; I wouldn’t do it justice if I tried to describe it, so you’ll just have to listen.

Next up, “Tranquilized” is as close as this band ever got to a “conventional” song, but thankfully the unconventional ones, like the positively terrifying “Finger Paintings of the Insane” and “Dr. Seuss is Dead,” or surprisingly gentle “Screams of the Butterfly” keep on coming -- often drenched in characteristic feedback and semi-psychedelic wah-wahs.

Deep into the album’s 65 minutes and fourteen cuts we finally arrive at two of my favorites, and they couldn’t be more different from each other: “What Color is Death?” thrashes into action with an intensity unmatched by many a death metal band, while “The Bones of Baby Dolls” paints apocalyptic visions over mournful acoustic guitars with softly crooned abstractions like:

“Mary Lou left marks on you, she just screams at the walls. The kite string pops, I'm swallowed whole by the sky; We smoke the bones of baby dolls; 

Techno-liquid screaming meat; Heaven's cold beneath my feet; Cyber love the anti-man; We make love ... because we can.

Virgins play where the bayou’s blue;  Barefoot and eatin’ mushroom stew; Work for pay and pay for freedom; Fuck 'em all, we don't need 'em. We smoke the bones of baby dolls ...

Everything’s gone dry ...”

Powerful stuff, and it led to above-average sales and even critical acclaim for Acid Bath, once When the Kite String Pops seeped its way into the sludge metal underground, and beyond.

Acid Bath would return, just as provocative and uncompromising, two years later with their sophomore album, Paegan Terrorism Tactics, this time boasting a painting on its sleeve by notorious euthanasia proponent Jack Kevorkian!

But the band sadly came to a sudden and violent end in 1997, when bassist Audie Pitre and his parents were killed by a drunk driver, and the remaining musicians chose to go their separate ways rather than replace him.

Buzzov•en - Wound - 1992