Fronted by guitarist, vocalist, and visionary Kevin A. Starrs, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats are a band whose proto-metal excursions exhibit all the creeping menace of early Black Sabbath while also adding a healthy dose of melody and just enough heady psychedelia around the edges to make it weird. Their early recordings were made on the cheap, but the lack of fidelity couldn't disguise the band's strengths. Once they had a label backing them, they still went for a lo-fi approach, and records like 2013's Mind Control came across like dusty artifacts saved from the dustbin by chance. As the band's profile grew, their albums became more assured and powerful -- 2018's Wasteland sounded arena-sized compared to early work -- and by the time of 2024's Nell' Ora Blu, they had the imagination and skill to concoct an almost metal-free (and convincing) soundtrack to an imaginary Italian film from the 1970s. Formed by Starrs in the late 2000s, the band made their debut in 2010 with the lo-fi Vol. 1, which was made up of songs Starrs put on MySpace that gained enough of a following to demand actual release on CD. (It was also reissued in remastered form in 2017 by Rise Above.) Many of the songs on Vol. 1 were recorded with the help of a bassist and drummer known as Kat and Red, respectively, and the album made enough money that they were able to record and release a second record. Done in a friend's garage, Blood Lust was initially a small-run CD-R before first Rise Above and then Metal Blade reissued it to a wider audience. While making the record, the band split apart and Starrs roped in a new rhythm section of Dean Millar on bass and Thomas Mowforth on drums. Guitarist Yotam Rubinger also joined, and the band set about making another album, again with Starrs producing. This time, the budget was a little bigger and the sound was more powerful. Mind Control was released in 2013 on Metal Blade. Their next album was inspired by cheap crime paperbacks and was meant to conjure up a bleak and grimy atmosphere while telling the tale of a serial killer. To help capture that feel, the band headed to Toe Rag Studios to work with legendary engineer Liam Watson. Starrs produced the record and played bass too, since Millar had left the band. Mowforth was also gone, replaced by Rubinger's brother Itamar on drums. The album, 2015's The Night Creeper, was a return to a lo-fi metal sound and found them gaining a wider fan base, including some hardcore psych rock devotees won over by their sound and devastating live show. After the album's release, the band's lineup shifted again, with Vaughn Stokes joining on second guitar. Subtract the Rubinger brothers, add Jon Rice on drums, and this is the trio that headed to the legendary Sunset Studio in L.A. to record their fifth album. With the help of engineer Geoff Neal and the same echo chamber Van Halen used in the '70s, the band laid down basic tracks before Starrs took the music home to Cambridge to finish in his home studio. As with many albums released in the late 2010s, 2018's Wasteland was a politically charged and dystopian album, in this case fueled by Starrs' massive guitars and the lo-fi, Sabbath-in-a-tin-can punch of the band. Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats toured behind the album until such activities were put on hold in early 2020, then headed back out in 2022. A selection of the band's material culled from two shows recorded in Minneapolis in 2019 and 2022 were released in 2023 under the title Slaughter on First Avenue. During this time, Starrs had an idea for an instrumental album, then scrapped it to undertake something very different from anything the group had done before. Inspired by his love of Italian cinema from the '70s, Starrs wrote a script for a film and then set about writing music to fit the words. Recording mainly by himself and utilizing Italian actors to do voice-overs, the resulting Nell' Ora Blu album was a huge left turn. While there were moments when the album provided some of the metallic crunch the band had cultivated in the past, there were also moody instrumental passages complete with piano, murky prog-rock explorations, portentous synthesizer pieces, and swirling psychedelic rockers, all with actors intoning the script over the top. It was released in May of 2024 with Starrs mulling over the possibilities of being able to play the album live. ~ Gregory Heaney & Tim Sendra, Rovi

Uncle Acid & the deadbeats, Jonathan Hulten

Jonathan Hultén

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