Artist: Acid Mass
Country: USA
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Digital EP
Year: 2023
Acid Mass is a new one-man band from Cincinatti, Ohio, USA that throws its first feat on the table with ‘Lust For Violence’. There are records that through a well-chosen title and carefully crafted artwork defy your imagination, you are then left wondering what it would sound like until you actually put it on. That is absolutely not the case here, although the title and artwork are also extremely well-tailored, the musical content can actually be guessed from miles away.
On this 10-minute digital EP, which was preceded by three digital singles, Ben Ricketts dishes us a catchy morsel of old school metal in which the influence of all sorts of genre classics shines through. The basic sound can best be called sleazy, alcohol-drenched Thrash Metal, but elements of early, first-wave Black Metal (Venom, Bathory), Speed Metal, Punk and even a touch of mid-’80s Death Metal are also clearly discernible. The pace is brisk and Ben knows exactly how to strike the right tone to be stylistically in the vein of the likes of Midnight, Abigail and early Toxic Holocaust. No, of course this is not original, but it is abundantly clear that that was never the intention to begin with. This is good, entertaining music that begs to be pressed onto vinyl and enjoyed in a bawdy pub at 666 decibels.
