ACRIMONY Advance 7" Tracks '93

"Hippy Doom from the hills of Wales"

"Airmong? Any good??" as my Dad said, responding to my new t-shirt. I used to badger guitar star Stu O'Hara for the latest Acrimony rehearsal tapes and he always obliged. The wiley old chap left me a track by British progsters at the close of one of the tapes... and that alone adjusted my listening preferences for some considerable time. Another story!

In April 1992 five taffy bois entered Sonic Studios with producer Tim Hamill (he of Tortoise Corpse) and recorded the 'A Sombre Thought' demo. Those three tracks of mid-paced death-tinged doom metal did rather well on the circuit and live shows in the local area attracted a small yet loyal following. Exposure in fanzines - including local zinester Peter J's very own Verbal Aggression and Spud's (he who discovered Fear Factory) Beyond Death Zine from the North East - led to a strong underground pen-pal base. As young Welsh bois from the valley do they blended Cannabis and Mushies with the splendid street-nectar Buckfast and emerged, a year later, with some much-livened transatlantic stoner/ hippy doom. Taking their cue from Cathedral at their grooviest, a dash of Hawkwind and Sabbath they presented to us, and Shiver Records (Belgium), four tracks of twisted, struggling, groovsome down-an-dirty doom.

I only ever really liked 'Herb' at the time - and that's an instrumental. 'Eternally Mine' was a crushing doom-monster... but didn't make it onto the vinyl, Shiver preferring 'Solstice Sadness' and 'For Morrow' only for the 7" record.

The rest is history. Acrimony had their four-and-a-half minutes of fame on an Evan Seinfeld (Biohazard) presented 'Triple Thrash Treat' on MTV with 'Spaced Cat #6' in the Summer of 1994 (album 'Hymns To The Stone on Godhead soon to be reissued on vinyl via Leafhound). The video... typically... shows the 'bois stoned to f*** coated in swamp-mud, gazing at tombstones and looking hysterically blank and yet entirely bewildered at the same time...

"Just rock, innit?"