As the sticker on the cover warns, this version of Acid Mothers Temple is neither The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. nor The Cosmic Inferno. In fact, this is the first Acid Mothers Temple album without the group’s founder Kawabata Makoto in the line-up. Rather, this is a new band altogether formed by Magic Aum Gigi, who has appeared on a few previous Acid Mothers albums, and includes two other musicians to complete the “punk blues” trio. I was particularly interested in what a non-Makoto Acid Mothers album would sound like, and ultimately learned how much his presence adds.
Starting the album is “Sandoza Death Blues,” a monolithic blues riff beaten into the ground quite early on. Unfortunately this lasts for almost twenty minutes without enough variation to make it worthwhile. Making things worse, at several times during the track there are abrupt pauses of a second or two that I initially attributed to a faulty CD player or a manufacturing glitch, but in fact turned out to be intentional as the music starts up again, albeit slightly differently. Had these pauses been edited out, or even better, had these minimal changes been incorporated into the songwriting, the results would fare better.
Although it had gotten off to a bad start, I wasn’t yet ready to write off the project completely. And I’m glad I didn’t, because the next few tracks are pretty enjoyable. “The Tale of the Garden of Sandoza” is a brief, mostly atmospheric piece composed of a harmonica, light cymbals, and ambient guitar. “Rock on Brain” doesn’t really rock, but instead entertains with trippy effects. Likewise, “Acid Mothers Rock‘N’Roll” is much mellower than I expected from the title, but is well executed and is probably my favorite song on the album. Things were looking up until I got to “Freaks Your Mind & Your LSD Piss Will Follow,” a nearly 30-minute slab of indulgence that is ultimately the album’s undoing. There’s a nice section about two-thirds into the song, but it’s surrounded on both sides by noodling feedback and cymbals, as well as the name of the song oft-repeated as a mantra. “La Bas” ends the album nicely with distorted guitar playing that’s eventually joined by two voices, but it’s too little, too late.
I was genuinely looking forward to a new form of Acid Mothers Temple, but I was ultimately disappointed. Which is too bad because with some generous editing, this could have been a decent effort but instead has a couple of glaring potholes.
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