Dax Riggs
Say Goodnight to the World (Fat Possum)
Reviewed by Austin Powell, Fri., Nov. 26, 2010
Dax Riggs
Say Goodnight to the World (Fat Possum)The cultish career of Dax Riggs has taken the backwoods less traveled. In the early 1990s, he fronted pioneering Louisiana sludge metal outfit Acid Bath, which spawned Goatwhore and the more melodic Agents of Oblivion before re-emerging in the blues-rock duo Deadboy & the Elephantmen for 2006's We Are Night Sky. Like labelmate (and fellow C3 Presents client) Erika Wennerstrom of the Heartless Bastards, Riggs ended up in Austin, where he cut his third solo album in four years. Say Goodnight to the World fades to black with gritty punk-blues that suggests a swampier Black Keys ("Graveyard on My Blue Suede Shoes," "No One Will Be a Stranger"). His gothic-noir lullabies ("I Hear Satan," "See You All in Hell or New Orleans") are carried by a voice that still conjures the ghost of Layne Staley. In "Heartbreak Hotel," which slows the original to a near-deathbed lament, Riggs proves he's not just howling milk cow blues.