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Acrimony: Tumuli shroomaroom

04/01/11 || Khlysty

I was tempted to put this sucker up for Class 6(66), but in the end I said fuggit and decided to review it in the plain format, although I still believe that it’s pure classic fodder. Anyway, crack out yer bongs, fill ‘em real good and fire ‘em up, ‘cause this is gonna take some time.

Acrimony came from the land of funny names and funnier accents (that is Wales), but there’s nothing funny ‘bout ‘em. Some people consider them to be the ultimate “stoner” band and if they refer to their obvious affinity towards the stinkybuds and/or the magic ‘shrooms, they’re prolly right. Me, though, I think of them as one of the best true-blue doom/acid bands the Isles ever produced. I have already talked about the “head-space” that differentiates good doom from bad and I can easily tell you that them boys are the real mccoy and that “Tumuli Shroomaroom” is one of the best ‘90s doom records that you –yeah, you, there, exactly…- have never even heard about.

Listening to the nine songs that comprise “Tumuli Shroomaroom”, one gets the feeling that the guys at Acrimony, after copiously consuming huge quantities of stinkyweed, decided to go into a studio, crank up their amps, and jam the Everest-sized trip away. The songs, even the relatively smaller ones (like, say, the blink-and-you-missed-it five-minutes-long “Bud Song”), give off a sense of cosmic proportions, what with their titanic riffs, slug-speeds and boy-am-I-too-smashed-to-find-a-way-of-ending-it time-bending quality. Acrimony brings the heavy in spades here, but they also has the presence of mind to add some minor variations to the songs –be it some contextually interesting arrangement choices, some ‘70s-derived hard rock-isms, or some flanged-out little guitar solos-, so as to avoid turning the whole thing into a monolith of downtuned hazy experience.

Also the band manages to groove out on most of the songs, even when they go into acid-drenched jam territories (check out the 13-plus-change-minutes-long “Firedance”), sometimes almost reaching headbanging –instead of headnodding- levels, totally unheard-of in the genre. Of course, Acrimony holds its influences on its sleeve, nicely combining early Sabbathic downtunedfullness with Hawkwind’s acid-beyond-belief experimentation and some late ‘60s psyched-out bloozisms (look at Blue Cheer for reference), to create a record that’s heavier that bricks and, at the same time, pretty out there. Produced be Andy Sneap, “Tumuli Shroomaroom” sounds BIG and HUGE and more fuzzed-out than the law normally allows, but there’s also enough clarity and separation so as to give the listener the breathing space required.

Bottom line? Weeeell, it’s easy. Even if you don’t really like acid/doom, Acrimony offers you here one hell of a good record to change your attitude towards the genre. Slow, heavy, psyched out, groovy and surprisingly immediate for what it is, “Tumuli Shroomaroom” is one hell of a good record. And, although it’s been 14 years since it first came out, it still sounds fresh and exciting. Simply put, it ain’t get better than this.

8,5

Information
Released: 1996
Label: Peaceville
Website: www.blackmetal.com/~mega/acrimony
Band
Dorian Walters: vocals
Lee Davies: guitars
Stuart O’Hara: guitars
Paul “Mead” Bidmead: bass
Darren Ivey: drums, percussion

Tracklist
01. Hymns to the stone
02. Million year summer
03. Turn the page
04. Vŷ
05. Find the path
06. The bud song
07. Motherslug (the mother of all slugs)
08. Heavy feather
09. Firedance

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