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Review & Full Album Stream: Acid Magus, Wyrd Syster

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Acid Magus release Wyrd Syster July 30 on Mongrel Records. Hardly a year after unveiling their first single and thereby exposing the lizard people of their native Pretoria, South Africa, heavy psychedelic four-piece Acid Magus bring forth Wyrd Syster as their debut full-length through countryman imprint Mongrel Records. It is duly tripped out, putting modern psych and garage-style heavy in a nebular swirl and sculpting the results into songs of varying length and intent, sometimes headed ‘out there’ in a fashion that reminds of Black Rainbows — looking at you, “Conscientious Pugilist” and “She is the Night” — and offering more weighted blowout heavy ethereality in its closing pair “Evil” and “Red Dawn,” the latter of which answers the shouts of “Rituals” earlier on as though to confirm that, no, their arising from all that wash of fuzz was not a dream, but a reality altered by the molten churn bent to the band’s will. Garage doom is a factor — WitchUncle Acid‘s melodious threat, etc. — but so is grunge, and there’s depth of mix to account for all of it as made earthbound by guitarist Keenan Kinnear, bassist Jarryd Wood, drummer Roelof van Tonder and vocalist Christiaan Van Renen. One way or the other, Wyrd Syster is the stuff of run-on sentences and mixed metaphor, clearly.

True, all things are fleeting, ephemeral, mortal, and some day the sun will swell to however many times its size, burn away the oceans and the atmosphere and eventually the rest of the planet itself. Nothing we as a species do or have ever done can possibly last or matter into such a scale of time. Can’t argue. Sooner or later, the bubble that is the universe itself may simply pop. But in the meantime, Acid Magus cull 44 minutes of deep-dive-ready, headphones-on fuzz-o-buzz, the riffs of the title-track leading the way with echo-drenched leads and a laid back hook delivery from Van Renen. The rhythm is a subtle charge, but it’s intermittent, coming and going amid drifting guitar and a more open verse, and spaciousness and atmosphere feel as much an essential facet of the band’s execution as does the lattice from which they launch, but “Wyrd Syster” is also only half a tell.

acid magus wyrd sisterAs the shortest inclusion — the interlude “Virgo” notwithstanding — on the album that bears its name, “Wyrd Syster” is as much a tease as it is an introduction to what follows, and there’s a marked shift as “Rituals” takes hold with riffage hypnotic and more patient in its flow, the rolling groove that starts out receding behind the central guitar line only to emerge again, massive, powerful, as the procession hits its payoff. For all the space the band have covered, they’ve only just begun, and “Conscientious Pugilist” follows with samples, a spaced-out wacky solo backed by room-emphasis drums leading to Sabbath crunch, start-stop-then-all-start shove and echoing screams and suddenly you get a better sense of why one might call the band “experimental.” It’s not so much about them playing their instruments upside down or making noise for noise’s sake — nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing — but there’s a sense of adventure in “Conscientious Pugilist” as the longest track on Wyrd Syster, and even in the moment to recover that the subsequent quiet stretch of “Virgo” represents as the record’s centerpiece, the impact of Acid Magus‘ outbounding is not to be understated. No lack of exploration for their carrying structure with them.

I’ll make it easy for you: If you’re not on board by the time they ooze into “She is the Night,” the rest will only be a slog, but for those who can get to it and those to whom it gets, side B of Wyrd Syster has plenty more delights of its own to offer, mirroring the shortest-to-longest setup of “Wyrd Syster,” “Rituals” and “Conscientious Pugilist,” but with “She is the Night” setting out from a place less initial than the opener (duh), benefiting from the altitude adjustment already wrought by Acid Magus on the tracks preceding. Like the title-track, “She is the Night” has a standout delivery of its titular lyric, and its guitar rings in ambient fashion, but the joy is the nod and layered movement that takes hold at the end, rumbling out to stillness eventually as all things must, but leaving that resonant guitar behind as an epilogue. “Evil” churns and writhes and seeps and careens through dynamic turns, coalescing around its groove as much as anything, and cutting off cold ahead of “Red Dawn” at the finish. I don’t think the closer is about the Patrick Swayze movie, but I’ve certainly been wrong before. The fuzz and the hey-man-what’s-wrong-aren’t-you-coming shove are reaffirmed early alongside a melodic highlight and given counterpoint in the slower march that arises, spaceborne and elephantine, to lead into the last fadeout with silence to spare at the end, more cosmic than kosmiche, but unfurling in the vacuum either way.

Whether or not you take the journey out the airlock with Acid Magus is ultimately up to you, but Wyrd Syster provides more than enough reach and breadth and resonance to justify the minimal effort in doing so. As their debut — if in fact it is — it shows a distinct chemistry taking shape within the familiar aspects of genre, and sees the band honing their persona out of the various elements and tropes with which they’re working. Consider yourself dared to give it a shot and see where it takes you.

Enjoy:

Acid Magus, Wyrd Syster album premiere

DOWNLOAD / STREAM: https://orcd.co/acidmagus_wyrdsyster

Impassioned, epic, slow, and heavy; it’s all here as Acid Magus present their finest work to date.

In the faint light that separates dreams from reality, lies from truth and heaven from hell, lives the Acid Magus. Meditating, surrounded by darkness and light, energising the air with electric anticipation. Come forward and listen, stay awhile, there are no sins.

“For the first time the band have experimented with some low tuning, so expect octave drops and tempo changes. All the psych/stoner/doom vibes to be expected but once again, that alt rock accessibility lingers.” Comments guitarist Keenan Kinnear

Line Up:
Keenan Kinnear: guitars
Jarryd Wood: bass guitar
Roelof van Tonder: drums
Christiaan Van Renen: vocals

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