ACID BATH — When The Kite String Pops (review)

ACID BATH — When The Kite String Pops album cover

Album · 1994 · Sludge Metal

4.5/5 · 2024-04-25
siLLy puPPy

ACID BATH was one of those 90s metal bands that was too eclectic for its own good and despite existing from 1991 to 1997 released two groundbreaking albums that mostly fell on deaf ears during the band’s existence but has slowly but surely attained the status of best metal bands of all time after three decades of retrospect. Forged out of the ashes of the two bands Dark Carnival and Golgotha, ACID BATH was born in 1991 in the small city of Houma, Louisiana situated southwest of New Orleans. The band’s career might’ve taken off however the death of bassist Audie Pitre in 1997 from a car crash pretty much ended any aspirations of continuing. Despite it all, ACID BATH’s two albums have become modern metal classics.

Best known by some as that metal band that used the artwork of serial killer John Wayne Gacy and suicide proponent Dr Jack Kevorkian for its cover art, ACID BATH has been typically lumped into the world of sludge metal for its Melvins inspired sludge metal riffing and Eyehategod bleakness, ACID BATH was so much more with influences from the contemporary world of grunge, alternative metal, stoner metal and even death metal. The debut WHEN THE KITE STRING POPS emerged in 1994, right at the time when grunge bands and their metal hybrids were ruling the roost in the world of popular metal and hard rock. Possibly stunted by not emerging from the Seattle scene, ACID BATH’s debut may have gone mostly unnoticed but was one of those silent revolutionary albums that mixed various musical styles seamlessly.

In many ways ACID BATH was the quintessential 90s band that encompassed many of the trends that were dominating the music world. As “The Blue” opens this lengthy album of 14 tracks that add up to 69 minutes of playing time, the tripped out feedback reminiscent of stoner metal bands like Kyuss add spice to the sludgy downtuned bass and guitar riff driven grooviness. Alternating between a heavier sludge metal style of Eyehategod with obnoxiously screamed vocals and less intense clean vocal segments that evoke the Jethro Tull inspired singing style of Psychotic Waltz’ Buddy Lackey, WHEN THE KITE STRING POPS can’t be accused of being tedious as it consistently shape shifts from pseudo-death metal inspired aggression to Alice In Chains inspired melodic and soulful alternative metal grunge. The all acoustic track “The Bones of Baby Dolls” is right out of the Alice In Chains unplugged playbook.

Despite the myriad stylistic approaches throughout WHEN THE KITE STRING POPS, the most ubiquitous feature of ACID RAIN is the strong dueling guitar effect with one guitarist delivering strong alt metal grunge riffing while the other accents with contrapuntal grooves, licks and occasional lead outbreaks. The star of the show has to be vocalist Dax Riggs who displayed a firm command of the soulful grunge vocal style and was on par with the greats of the era such as Chris Cornell of Soundgarden or Alice In Chains’ Layne Staley. Throughout the course of the album Riggs animates the sludgy stoner grunge metal with a diverse roster of screams from the world of sludge metal, shouts courtesy of hardcore punk, sensual clean vocal styles sounding like a dead ringer for Psychotic Waltz as well as emulating Alice In Chains itself yet while displaying obvious influences ACID BATH managed to craft something totally of its own making.

Perhaps the only downfall of WHEN THE KIT STRING POPS is that of its unwieldy playing time and despite not hosting a single turkey of a track, can be a bit to sit through in one go as the tracks do tend to feature recycled motifs and musical processions however when music is this fantastically good it’s also a treat to simply get more! This is one of those grower albums because after the first listening experience i failed to get all the hype behind it but after the strong melodies and subtle arrangements began to sink in it really got under my skin. My experience is probably the same of many others as by the end of the 90s the album had only old a mere 37,000 copies in the USA but since then has become one of the most revered metal albums of the entire 90s. The band only released one more album, the equally revered “Paegan Terrorism Tactics” two years later before disbanding but the band’s two albums were of such high quality that it guaranteed a slot in the highest ranks of metal history for time immemorial.