Band:	Acid Bath
Album:	When The Kite String Pops
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	August 08, 1994
A review by:	Lucas

01. The Blue
02. Tranquilized
03. Cheap Vodka
04. Finger Paintings Of The Insane
05. Jezebel
06. Scream Of The Butterfly
07. Dr. Seuss Is Dead
08. Dope Fiend
09. Toubabo Koomi
10. God Machine
11. The Mortician's Flame
12. What Color Is Death?
13. The Bones Of Baby Dolls
14. Cassie Eats Cockroaches

"She smiles like a child with flowers in her hair. With blood on her hands, into the sun she stares. She feels it die, I heard her cry."

Welcome in the world of Acid Bath. A sick and violent world, where serial killers roam the streets and drugs are an absolute necessity to escape the vile state of mind so often called "reality". This five-headed monster is violent, depressed, pissed-off, drunk, on acid, raging, insane, dead and rotting, and all at the same time. "When The Kite String Pops" is their message to the world.

"I have fallen deep in love with the sky. Fragments of a sunbeam glaring on a kitchen knife."

Combining themes such as death, drugs, doom and humor with the thoughts of a serial-killer/pedophile/suicidal maniac, their lyrics turned out twisted, dark but also with a surprising touch to them. Sometimes they are even funny, in an absurd sense. Soon after listen to this album a few times you'll find yourself singing "we smoke the bones of baby dolls" over and over again.

"She screams bloody murder as they chop off her fingers...
So this is how it feels to die."

Such lyrics demand equally vile music. And damn, they have done it like none other. Their Sabbath worship is soaked in Southern Rock and perversion, becoming one of the first so-called "Sludge Metal" bands: ultra-heavy doom with a lot of groove and extreme vocals. Where Eyehategod were a lot more extreme, Acid Bath made up for this with pure catchiness and groove. Once you are used to the sound, you will want to hear it over and over again.

"Hearts will stop and brain cells pop.
Apocalyptic high."

Dax Riggs is one hell of a vocalist, and absolutely perfect for this band and genre. His screeches are penetrating, while his clean vocals are sad yet twisted. Together with the stomping riffs and distortion he can be straight-out brutal. Who does not love the first massive punch in the gut from "The Blue": "Across your face!"? On the two (sort of) ballads"Scream Of The Butterfly" and "The Bones Of Baby Dolls" he really shines, with his beautiful, emotive wails. Singing his morbid stories about murder and suicide, he evokes a special sort of dark ecstacy, a dangerous form of energy in which the subject first reaches a deep low, before rising up with a fucked up, "fuck the world we're going to take drugs and get drunk and whoever is dead last is a pussy!"-attitude. Everybody that is familiar with the stomping, repetitive violence of an inescapable depression feels exactly like that every once in a while, and this album is a perfect way to give that a jumpstart.

"We're all gonna die tomorrow.
The freaks are screaming burn it down.
She can't feel the weather.
I can't touch the ground."

A bit of criticism is also in its place. For one, the album is pretty long and in my opinion they should have left two or three tracks out. That being said, there are no real fillers on "When The Kite String Pops". Some songs are obviously better than others, but every song has its own replay value. I really would not be the one who has to decide which songs to remove, anyway. Acid Bath sucks you into their filthy little world and does not let go. Give it a few tries and you will find it is as addictive as heroin, as maddening as a bad drop of acid, and cool as fuck!

"The kite string pops..."