Always too bold and idiosyncratic to be easily pigeonholed, they emerged from an obscure corner of the labyrinthine English underground as shadowy purveyors of a new and overwhelmingly psychedelic take on the gruff and gritty rudiments of hard rock and turbo-blues, powered by the dark, lysergic heart of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s and drenched in woozily macabre imagery.
Check out the video for ‘Shockwave City‘ below;
Steeped in both the wayward melodies and mischievous arrangements of psychedelic pop and the dissonant thunder of proto-metal and doom, Starrs’ greatest feat has been to create an entirely fresh sonic world from these most familiar of ingredients.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats’ reputation was swiftly built on towering, riff-driven milestones like 2011’s breakthrough opus Blood Lust and its warped and wicked follow-up, Mind Control (2013); both released through Rise Above Records and subsequently showered with critical acclaim. By the time Starrs’ band created The Night Creeper in 2015, their mutation into heavy music’s most unmistakable eccentrics was complete, as their leader cranked up the melodic weirdness, rendering his monstrous ideas in something approaching three-dimensional Technicolor.
Firmly established as cult heroes, Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats consolidated The Night Creeper’s triumph by touring the world extensively, including a string of sold-out shows in the U.S., Europe and Australia.
After sustaining that momentum with Starrs’ long-awaited remix of his band’s hard-to-find eponymous debut album from 2010, the singer/guitarist and his henchmen spent much of the last year immersed in the process of making a fifth full-length album. 47 minutes of vital, audacious and frequently bewildering heavy psychedelia, it bears the title Wasteland and is instantly recognisable as Starrs’ most immersive and evocative body of work yet.
A disorientating journey through Starrs’ wonkiest dreams, Wasteland glides majestically from punchy and direct psych-rock anthems like I See Through You and Shockwave City to the viscous, somnambulant ooze of the eight-minute No Return and the twinkly-eyed bad trip of the album’s mesmerising title track.
Recorded at the legendary Sunset Sound studio in Los Angeles, Wasteland boasts the kind on irresistibly raw and exuberant sound that only the greatest bands can generate. Later completed at Starrs’ own studio, the new songs showcase a newly refreshed line-up, with Starrs once again joined by long-time bassist Vaughn Stokes (who will play rhythm guitar at future live shows, handing over bass duties to Jus Smith) and also latest recruit, drummer Jon Rice.
“We recorded the basic tracks the way we always do,” says Starrs. “Everyone in one room, live and straight to tape. We worked with a great engineer called Geoff Neal (NIN/Motorhead/Fuzz), who really understood what we were going for and how to capture it. Playing in the same room where so many classic albums were made definitely inspired us. Even small things like running the guitars through the same echo chamber that Van Halen used in the ‘70s, it all added to the overall experience.”
Yet more confirmation that Uncle Acid exists in their own musical universe, Wasteland is also a powerful cautionary tale: one rooted in the alien landscapes of Starrs’ imagination, but with a very clear connection to the deranged chaos of today’s political world. As humanity cheerfully circles the plughole, Dystopian visions and present-day horrors have become more-or-less interchangeable, making Wasteland’s ghoulish surrealism a lot more pertinent and disturbing in the process.
“The album is set in a land where people live in walled cities, under heavy surveillance, cut off and in fear of one another,” Starrs explains. “All their thoughts, knowledge and memories have been wiped clean, leaving them like the living dead, barely functioning and addicted to the glow of flickering propaganda screens.”
“In the underworld, there are program discs for the brain that can replace stolen thoughts and allow people to finally think for themselves,” he continues. “It gives them knowledge to escape the misery of the cities and to reach the freedom of the outer wastelands, but the wasteland, of course, is total hell on earth. The general idea seemed quite fitting with all the propaganda and misinformation that we’ve been bombarded with in recent years.”
The band embark on a European & U.K. tour later this year / early 2019. The full list of dates is as follows:
15.11.18 – Brussels – AB
16.11.18 – Amsterdam – Paradiso Noord
17.11.18 – Hamburg – Knust
19.11.18 – Gothenburg – Pustervik
20.11.18 – Oslo – Rockefeller
21.11.18 – Stockholm – Nalen
23.11.18 – Helsinki – Tavastia
25.11.18 – Copenhagen – Gra Hal
26.11.18 – Berlin – SO36
27.11.18 – Warsaw – Hybrydy
28.11.18 – Dresden – Beatpol
29.11.18 – Vienna – Arena
01.12.18 – Munich – Strom
02.12.18 – Milan – Legend
03.12.18 – Villeurbanne – Transbordeur
04.12.18 – Zurich – Dynamo
06.12.18 – Karlsruhe – Substage
07.12.18 – Osnabruck – Rosenhof
08.12.18 – Cologne – Luxor
09.12.18 – Paris – La Maroquinerie
16.01.19 – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club
17.01.19 – Newcastle – Academy 2
18.01.19 – Glasgow – G2
19.01.19 – Belfast – Limelight 2
20.01.19 – Dublin – Academy Green Room
22.01.19 – Manchester – Gorilla
23.01.19 – Birmingham – The Asylum
24.01.19 – Cardiff – The Globe
26.01.19 – London – Brixton Electric
Oran O’Beirne
www.overdrive.ie 2018
