It is both a seeing-beyond and a beyond-seeing, this Beyond Vision. It at very least is a vision beyond anything Acid King have ever done on their four prior albums, as founding guitarist/vocalist Lori S. revamped the group in collaboration with Jason Landrian (also Black Cobra) on guitar and songwriting, bringing on the rhythm section of bassist/synthesist Bryce Shelton (also Nik Turner’s Hawkwind) and drummer Jason Willer (Jello Biafra’s Guantanamo School of Medicine). In the now-30-year history of the band, nothing under their name has attempted this magnitude of sound. They’ve never been so psychedelic or atmospheric, and they’ve been both for a long time, most recently on 2015’s under-lauded Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere (discussed here, review here), but Beyond Vision takes the terrestrial grooves of their past output and launches them into the ethereal. And from the moment they set forth through space into the roll of “One Light Second Away” and on through the first guitar solo, there is a fluidity to Beyond Vision that’s refreshed while still definitively Acid King. It’s like they got a reboot and that means something more than just it’s too dark to see what’s happening in the episodes.

That’s before you step into the “Mind’s Eye” and get to the fact that “90 Seconds” is just under five minutes long while the later interlude “Destination Psych” is just over 90 seconds and the bending of time required there or the Author & Punisher-plus-organic-drums thud and earth-shake at the launch of “Electro Magnetic”; the stunning realization there, before it goes so deep and far into standalone guitar that even the arrival of the also-standalone-guitar at the beginning of the title-track seems like a respite, never mind the nod or airy float of the vocals or the utter gorgeousness of the bassline. On and on they ooze through ground familiar and new, through not ground at all, the latter emphasized on the kraut-via-Clockwork–Orange intro to closer “Color Trails,” which is followed by plodding toms and a riff presented in tone worthy of Tony Iommi himself (I mean that), a full instrumental breadth and a dramatic finish around that same thud, the long-established partnership with producer/engineer Billy Anderson once again resulting in a malleable and thoughtful mix, spacious enough to be the band’s own world while still able to account for the largesse of riff that remains a core aspect of their style, even as the context surrounding has evolved toward atmospheric intangibility.

Collecting seven tracks with a runtime of just over 42 minutes, Beyond Vision builds on the less-terrestrial aspects of Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere, but its reach and the purposeful use of synth give it a character that still feels like a departure. Crucial to the telling is “One Light Second Away,” which even as the bass rumbles early in the fading-up ambience does a lot of the work in placing the listener where the band wants them. Some lightly foreboding swells of melodic keys coincide with organic bass and undulating waveforms of amplifier hum, and when the first strum hits at two minutes in, it’s a moment of clarity clearing away the surrounding murk. But while the entire six-minute stretch is important in terms of how it introduces the mood and dimensionality of the material that follows while also conveying the instrumentalist focus, those barely-there-at-first beginning two minutes are even more essential to Beyond Vision; a call to abandon consciousness and be absorbed. To get lost and trust the radiating currents of matter, energy, fractured molecular detritus, etc., to carry you from the start to see what resides at the end.

By 2:30, guitar, bass, drums and synth are all nodding, but Acid King claim their place in a mellow-psych movement they helped create even as they seem exploratory in their build, an echoing lead emerging over a welcoming sans-vocal chorus before the march resolidifies, reminding of Om‘s meditations but setting up a more straight-ahead guitar solo that carries them into the song’s final minute and a repeat of that rise-and-fall guitar hook. Synth is given room in the mix (there’s plenty) to become no less of a contributing factor than any other instrument in moving toward the last residual noise that transitions from “One Light Second Away” into “Mind’s Eye,” a strum and lead-note answer from the guitars willfully slow in the first minute as Acid King for the first time prioritize resonance over impact while offering both. Amid full fuzz buzz and a progression that feels constructed in part to answer that last stretch of “One Light Second Away,” “Mind’s Eye” assures there’s a guiding hand here, and still benefits from the soothing motif of what’s come before as it touches ground and rolls decisively forward. The first words on the album, delivered of course by Lori, are the invitation to “Step into the mind’s eye,” and though nearly a quarter of the runtime has passed before that verse starts — almost 10 minutes of a 42-minute LP, so not quite 25 percent but pardon the fuzz-tone math and take it as a signal of Beyond Vision‘s instrumental emphasis — that it exists at all is something of a snap to reality, even as the verse-ending line “You are on your way…” has rarely seemed so true.

Atop consistent ping-ride and crash and kick from Willer, the riff changes to more of a twisting bridge before smoothing out again on the interplay of big-hug-chug and fuzzy pepper-notes, shifting easily into and through a solo before going back to the verse, layered in the word “eye,” only one line changing from the first time through. The lyrics are hardly an afterthought — they’re the guide — but are intended to be taken as a piece of the entirety rather than a separate element, and as much as they provide a (literal and figurative) human communication from within so much nebular f0g, they serve the double-function of setting and enhancing the otherworldly motif of Beyond Vision as a full LP and become part of the flow that leads from one movement to another, less predictable as the record plays out because they might not always be there. “Mind’s Eye” rings out on a held guitar note that shifts into subtly churning synth and melodic hum in the intro to “90 Seconds,” the shape of which is revealed gradually with a verse over the low-end rumble, a kind of Lori-as-chant effect taking hold whether through layering or effects before the drums crash in just past the two-minute mark, a cavernous psychedelic doom soon resolved in lush melody ahead of a section of final crashes and a sweep into the noted synthesizer-plus-drums thud “Electro Magnetic.”

At 8:17, “Electro Magnetic” is the longest single inclusion on Beyond Vision and a key manifestation of Acid King‘s goals in moodcraft and instrumentalist contemplation. At the same time, the procession across the first half of the song in sparse guitar, timekeeping tom work, and synth-led nod reminds of “Carve the Five” from the band’s 1999 landmark second album, Busse Woods (featured here, discussed here, etc.), and so both reaffirms that Lori has dwelled in these kinds of spaces before even as the manner in which she and the rest of the band do so has changed (let alone the personnel), and grown more patient. The triumph of “Electro Magnetic” is declared at 4:02 as the drums mark the turn into the central riff of the song — which would remind tonally of Shrinebuilder if Shrinebuilder hadn’t been reminding of Acid King — and the march through a crescendo wash of fuzz and airy soloing, more severe than most of what’s landed thus far but not at all out of place for its obscured familiarity. After six minutes in, they shift back to the synth and drum repetitions, guitar complementing more than leading, and slowly begin to deconstruct, leaving the guitar as the last thread to depart, having said not an actual word but conveyed much, both answering and expanding on “One Light Second Away” as they course into side B’s subsequent molten ceremony.

Likewise instrumental, but more guitar-based at its core, the title of the 1:36 safe-to-call-it-an-interlude “Destination Psych” is referenced repeatedly in the lyrics of the penultimate “Beyond Vision,” though whether psychedelia is the destination of your journey or it’s “Destination Psych” like a destination-wedding, where the psych is happening in this place and you need to get there, I’m not certain. One way or the other, “Destination Psych” is the lead-in for the final movement of Beyond Vision, which encompasses it, the title-track that follows, and “Color Trails” at the end. It is the last track with vocals — three of seven, the final tally — and no less dug-in than anything prior, with a standout bassline from Shelton that feels like a call to prayer for those who’d worship Black Sabbath, starting after the languid solo turns into the final verse and makes its presence felt as “Beyond Vision” moves into its final minute, more active but not overblown in its payoff, the crash and rumble held for a long fade into the transitional buzz before the stark guitar and bass notes start “Color Trails” with a sense of comedown that’s undercut righteously by the mounting intensity of the piece as it moves into the section of riffing mentioned above, Lori answering the bass with her own Sabbath moment soon met by Willer‘s drums, which start on cymbals and kick but shift into increasingly furious tom fills, circular in their pattern as they’d almost inevitably be, but stretched for one last forward push.

Some of “Color Trails” bring to mind a song like “Laser Headlights” from Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere, or the buzzing leads of “Silent Pictures,” but the proportion has changed, and as Acid King return to that headspinner of a drum stretch, this time punctuated with cymbals and double-kick and, eventually, snare, the sense is that they’ve pushed as far as they can push and the only thing to do is end it, which they do as the guitars cut out and threaten a return, sweeping back in not to begin anew but to pull the drums down with them this time, leaving heavy silence and an echo in the mind of the listener of the scope of their accomplishment. Though it might sound like it on first blush because it’s so utterly entrancing, Beyond Vision does not meander. It is not sloppy, or haphazard, or unaware of itself. Instead, it is exactly what the band, particularly Lori and Landrian as songwriters — though it seems fair to imagine Lori has final say on everything they do — want it to be, and it manifests a new degree of immersion matched in wholeness of craft and boldness of sound that makes it a career album perhaps even more special because it’s not Acid King‘s first. They may not release records every year or two or five — though to be fair, they did offer Live at Roadburn 2011 (review here) in 2022 — but they’ve yet to put one out and have it not feel like a landmark.

What happens after Beyond Vision is anyone’s best guess. I won’t speculate, and neither will I feign impartiality about the band’s efforts here or in general. I’m a fan. There. And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll mention the liner notes I wrote for the PostWax release of the album, for which I was compensated, but if you think I was working the long con covering the band for the last 14 years to start raking in cash one time or that I’m somehow hyping up their work for my own financial interest, well, I’m not, and I’m pretty sure that money doesn’t exist even if I wanted it. The horrifying truth is that Acid King have thrown open creative doors with Beyond Vision and stepped into a new era for them as a band. Not just because there’s some synth or industrial beats, but because they’ve dug deep enough into their sound that they’ve uncovered new facets of it, dreamlike and sublime, memorable and sprawling. It was already long past time to start thinking of Acid King among the greatest acts heavy rock and roll has ever produced. Beyond Vision brooks no argument in sealing their place among these giants. Recommended.

Acid King, Beyond Vision (2023)

Acid King, “Destination Psych/Beyond Vision” official video

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Tags: Acid King, Acid King Beyond Vision, Beyond Vision, Blues Funeral Recordings, California, San Francisco

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 23rd, 2023 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.