Castle bound panopticon gazers lord in tower-high safety as ruin overtakes the poisoned and mystified populace of the small village at the heart of Cambridge, England-based psychedelic rock/doom metal quintet UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS‘ seventh full-length album. A surreal horror story elucidating the cost of complacency ‘Shapes of Midnight‘ bears no less of the cinematic unease these folks’ve fostered since the early 2010’s. Though the passerby can expect a true follow-up to the band’s fifth album in format and gloriously engineered function the greatest boon to their return to the riff is deeper ear-worming songcraft.

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats formed circa 2009 by way of Uncle Acid aka K.R. Starrs who’d bandied up a trio in service to late 60’s/early 70’s root-bound heavy psychedelic rock and made quick work of it with a self-released debut album (‘Volume 1‘, 2010) on CD-R. Their MySpace caught notice of the fellowes behind Rise Above Records soon after and the band’s popularity naturally escalated from that point. Throwback psychedelic rock and especially creeped-out occult rock were experiencing heated popularity when the band’s first LP released on vinyl and I recall describing Starrs‘ vocals as “leftover haunt at a creepy doll factory“, probably in response to “Wind Up Toys”, and marked their work as rich in weird personality but one note otherwise. They’d been quick to follow up with the heavier, slower and stonier ‘Blood Lust‘ (2011) while maintaining the chewed up, bleed-heavy production values and vintage gristle of their sound. It is probably their most universally noticed release though it’d been the more polished, doomed third album (‘Mind Control‘, 2013) from the band that’d caught my fandom.

It wasn’t that Uncle Acid yielded diminishing returns throughout the 2010’s so much as they’d taken a while to begin messing with their core conceit beyond polishing up their sound design, picking up the pace and tossing in a few early 70’s heavy metal riffs as we’d found on (‘Wasteland‘, 2018). The choice to make a concept album, a soundtrack for a faux giallo/crime drama film (‘Nell’ora blu‘, 2024) was appreciably ambitious and evocative of its subject but not a profound experience on my part, I was just there for the analog synth and creeped vocals; Channeling The Beatles, Poe‘s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’, and Argento in slight return to the surrealistic atmospheric tension of their earlier works ‘Shapes of Midnight‘ retakes the heavy rock album format and leans into riff-driven, snappier paced action.

Built upon a set of eight ~5-6 minute heavy rock pieces with a few stabs at NWOBHM-tinted 80’s metal riffcraft (“Sleep No More”, “Shapes of Midnight”) inserted for colour and pace ‘Shapes of Midnight‘ finds Uncle Acid and crew with the camera still on hand, managing a sort of concept album reflecting the terrors and injustices of today. Scenes of endtyme ails, crippling paranoia, class warfare, and man-made cataclysm all manifest within the story told here by way of lyrics set in both third and first person perspective. This yields a more verbose presence from the band, or at least a most readily evocative set of performances from Starr‘s haze of layers as the subject of the album offers a sinister layer beneath the bopping (“When Evil Wakes”) and drooping movement they’ve brought into this experience.

Captured the auld-fashioned way, live-in-studio at Abbey Road Studios (via engineer Chris Bolster) ‘Shapes of Midnight‘ finds its soil in the crisp anciency of its greater timbre, particularly the crack of the drum kit, while the performances are generally wooden and unreal per Uncle Acid‘s general shtick. Fuzz-dripping riffs, analog synth/keys help to warm the more immediate melodic curve of their efforts as we find on opener “House by the Grave” and the Ghostly bump of its main hook (see also: “Psycho on the Loose”) while the increasing circa ’71 bluesy jam out of the song offers something more explicitly early days coded. There is some great enthusiasm, relatively speaking, within the first several tracks offered here as the droning ask of their work is livened up via saxophones (“When Evil Wakes”) and strut-paced movement and this is testament to both the busier songcraft and the righteously apropos production values on offer.

The garage psych-punk downstroke of “Don’t Let it Control You” b/w synth rock anthem “Psycho on the Loose” struck me as the most profoundly different reaching in terms of Starr‘s songwriting here. Uncle Acid‘s discography isn’t without kitsch or uptempo digs but rarely delivers its winking moments with such a piano-tapping shake of the ass as we find on the latter. It of course works just fine within their sound but these types of pieces are almost more unnerving than the pair of headier, droning duo that end the album beyond the Lizzy-fed “I Won’t Sleep (’til You’re Gone)”. The slowed heavy metal stride of “The Other Side of the Sky” kinda ‘lude sagging “Sleep no More” offer less of an apex, no real high point to end their story here but rather pan into the irradiated sunset atop the ruins of civilization in surround.

By way of less patiently slung movement, choice sound and an expected layer of gloom Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats generally reprise what they do best while pushing catchier than expected ideas in the process. If you’d enjoyed the band’s work in the past but insisted they’d never had a truly ear-biting single then those moments will seem inescapable on the swagger through the otherwise sullen ‘Shapes of Midnight‘. Between ailing ghast-type vocals and a reasonable hit of jogging heavy metal riffs they’d captured my attention for a number of listens, partially remedying criticisms I’ve had of their work since the early 2010’s. Returning fans who’d followed along over the years but possibly skipped their prior LP should find their fandom enhanced and the spirit of the band upheld. A moderately high recommendation.

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