Reviews for The Early Years (Remastered)...

The Big Takeover

One of the stoner metal world’s finest (if least heralded) denizens, Acid King has had a long but unprolific career. Indie label Small Stone has done its best to keep the AK flag in flight, releasing the Bay Area trio’s most recent album III and reissuing its landmark second LP Busse Woods. Now SS does the same for the band’s first recordings, rescuing its self-titled EP and debut full-length Zoroaster from oblivion. Acid King has always been one of the most consistently powerful beasts in the stoner rock biz, and that power was present from the beginning. Leader Lori S trades in riffs that flow like molten steel from an overturned crucible, and her raspy alto bespeaks of late nights, last calls and lost innocence. Drummer Joey Osborne hits with the power and precision of a giant stomping a village, while bassist Peter Lucas (gone after these records) throbs in whatever empty space is left. Lori’s songwriting includes just enough melody to be enticing, but remains heavy as a blue whale in the grand Black Sabbath tradition. Crushers like “If I Burn,” “Lead Paint” and “Queen of Sickness” set standards not only for Acid King’s subsequent work, but also the stoner metal bands that followed, most of whom still labor to catch up.

- Michael Toland

All Music Guide

Understandably for a band that, in its infancy, fell under the monolithic influence of both sludge rock titans the Melvins and stoner metal demigods Sleep, San Francisco's Acid King were bound to interpret the primeval doom of Black Sabbath through an especially cobweb-caked kaleidoscope of sound. Which is why, despite a career marked by meager sales of infrequent output amid extended periods of inactivity, there remains enough consumer curiosity and demand to justify reissues such as Small Stone's The Early Years, containing Acid King's eponymous 1994 EP and the next year's full-length, Zoroaster. The first of these was in fact produced -- if you can call its lo-fi aesthetic "production" -- by the Melvins' own Dale Crover, whose broad personal experience with capturing thundering bottom ends is certainly felt on the ode to poison fumes, "Lead Paint," the hypnotic power chords of "Blasting Cap," and the depressive dirge of "Midway." The barbed-wire wail of guitarist Lori S. cuts through all of these like, well, barbed wire, but bassist Pete Lucas gets a shot at the microphone as well for the malevolent, almost space rock-tinged crawl of "Drop." Tellingly, Zoroaster's succeeding ten songs sounded a little thin compared to the Crover-produced EP, but there was still plenty of chunky, distorted "Sabbage" in store for the bong-toting burnouts in the audience to nod off to, ranging from the energized stoner metal of "If I Burn," "Tank," and "Queen of Sickness" to the tail-dragging doom grinds of "One Ninety Six" and "Reload." And as long as Mary Jane and music go together, Acid King and their back catalog will continue to reach new fans with each passing year, mainstream acknowledgment be damned.

- Eduardo Rivadavia

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1. Lead Paint
2. Blasting Cap
3. Drop
4. Midway
5. Evil Satan
6. If I Burn
7. One Ninety-six
8. Vertigate #1
9. Tank
10. Dry Run
11. Fruit Cup
12. Queen of Sickness
13. Reload
14. Vertigate #2