Acid King - s/t

“When Acid King pressed up their self-titled debut EP on a tape and started handing them out at shows with business cards, it wasn’t an aesthetic choice. It was 1993. And while the world was still reeling in the aftermath of grunge breaking big on rock radio, this dirty-as-hell trio founded by guitarist / vocalist Lori S. were digging into even heavier vibes. Born out of Lori’s shiftless days of wasted youth hanging around Chicago-area public parks, Acid King laughingly adopted the name from the book Say You Love Satan and its subject Ricky Kasso, a local drug dealer who killed a friend over angel dust, thereby becoming the stuff of Satanic Panic local news broadcasts all over the country. “Founded after a move to San Francisco, Acid King were outliers on punker bills in the tradition of West Coast rifflords like Saint Vitus and Sleep, and this four-song outing captures them at their rawest. Long before the career-defining roll of Busse Woods (1999) and the psychedelic mastery of their latest offering, Beyond Vision, this EP set in motion one of American heavy rock’s most landmark careers. “Presented on reissued vinyl through Riding Easy Records—the original 10-inch was on Sympathy For The Record Industry—Acid King’s Acid King also established one of the most crucial partnerships in underground rock in that between Lori S. and producer / engineer Billy Anderson (Neurosis, Sleep, Om, etc). As Acid King went on to help define stoner rock in the mid and late ’90s with Zoroaster (1995), that creative relationship would flourish no less than the band’s sound, and here it is distilled to its meanest and most elemental self. “Led as ever by Lori, Acid King at the time featured bassist / vocalist Peter Lucas and drummer Joey Osbourne—legend has it both had to read Say You Love Satan before joining—and Melvins drummer Dale Crover had a hand in producing it as well as singing lead on “The Midway” after Lucas took a turn on “Drop.” A preface to the many majesties to come throughout Acid King’s many-storied career, behold the formative incarnation that started it all. A piece of heavy rock history and killer riffs? You can’t possibly go wrong.” —JJ Koczan