At 12:03am on Saturday, when Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats ceased, the UK doom melodians slammed the coffin shut on Levitation’s second-worst day – a black Friday without a single drop of precipitation (at least where this Central Austinite sat/stood/waited). Puddles of human fluid flowing through Empire Control Room’s tented outside stage didn’t count.
Capping a five-hour bill commingling witchy sirens (Purson) and Brazilian guitar jangle (Boogarins), the Cambridge fourpiece lived up to its canceled Carson Creek Ranch designation as a day one headliner – still a rare import on its third U.S. trek. Their Seventies metal, Black Sabbath dappled with Angel Witch, Cactus, Pentagram, plodded and prodded like legions before them, but their secret weapon carried the group’s 75-minute set like a succubus breast feeding her spawn.
Directly beforehand, Swedish psychs Dungen regressed the full house back to the heyday of the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and for one flute solo, Jethro Tull. A decade ago, touring stateside breakout Ta det Lugnt, the Stockholm quartet’s sardine set in the front room of Emo’s on Sixth and Red River brought down the hammer of the gods no less than a late-Sixties Led Zeppelin set on Scandinavian TV. Now, front keyboardist and bandleader Gustav Ejstes substitutes jam – folk warped by organ, languid basslines, and underwater guitar chords – for slam, summoning perfect Levitation fodder that both zones and catapults.
By contrast, Uncle Acid’s three-speed killing machine – dirges at steamroller tempos, either upticked a notch or down-tempoed the same increment – dug an inescapable musical rut by the 50th minute, but guitarists Kevin Starrs and Yotam Rubinger filled that channel with a dual vocal attack unlike any other in current metal. The bandleader’s Tony Iommi solos loosened their own melodic bloodletting, but the moment Rubinger joined in at the mic (his brother Itamar Rubinger on drums), their combined cry somehow approximated a youth choir – sweet, childlike, and vaguely unsettling, descending-chord choruses spiking sugary highs.
A pop band like Ghost aims for such a sweet spot with half the efficacy.
Blood Lust bruisers “Death’s Door,” “13 Candles,” second and final encore “Withered Hand of Evil,” plus brief mosh instigator “I’ll Cut You Down” spined the set list with thundering, no-frills jolts – scant talk, minimal tuning, and nothing but tight. From last year’s fourth LP, The Night Creeper, “Pusher Man” deposited a buzzing drone at the base of every coccyx, Starrs wailing like Ozzy Osbourne.
“Okay, Austin, I want to see you go fucking crazy!” he then shouted in true Oz fashion.
Thirty minutes later, on first encore “Desert Ceremony” off 2013’s Mind Control, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats scooped up all their open-heart-surgery trophies and burned any remains.
This article appears in April 29 • 2016.