LORDS OF ACID
Pretty In Kink
Metropolis Records
4/5
The Belgian-American techno-rock outfit’s first album in nearly six years, Pretty In Kink wasn’t quite what I’d expected. That being said, I’m quite happy with it and I think that the fans and Kickstarter backers will be too. A record fueled by sex, debauchery and Crowleyan sex magick, the disc features everything from rock to classic electronic efforts that come screaming out of the eighties. I’m getting references to KMFDM at their earliest and that’s not something I would have expected. “Sex Cam Girl” for instance, brings back the kind of synth performance that I remember Sascha being quite proficient at, though seeming to stagger with regarding their last album. That being said, Lords Of Acid also take the approach a bit further than most acts in this genre as they utilize more of an acidic approach to the music in general, reminding me a bit of the Mortal Kombat soundtrack of the nineties. This sort of acidic approach to techno has been pushed long underground by what I’d consider to be an outright bastardization in dubstep, making a track like “Flow Juice” come off like an ancient history lesson to the current generation still lost their in their dub, nightcore and wave musings. I enjoy wave music too, but I haven’t forgotten completely about techno, trance, rave and house. These are essential approaches that are in dire need of resurrection.
Guitars are featured on the album, though not on every song and that works for me. I think that the listener will appreciate tracks like opener “Break Me”, “Like Pablo Escobar” and closer “We Are The Freaks” a bit more when there’s variation in between them. The production value here isn’t too crisp either, which I prefer very much as it recalls both the eighties golden age of electronics and the nineties (silver age) quite well. There’s nothing that I like better with electronic albums than hearing a cut like “Before The Night Is Over” which reminds me greatly of what I’d consider the prime of this genre. I prefer to hear good electronic music these days and there’s just too little of it that hasn’t been grossly simplified and then littered with hip hop beats. The vocals are a bit raw in some areas, but that’s also perfectly fine as it again, reminds me of the era. Lords Of Acid didn’t use autotuning or some kind of vocal processing software to make themselves sound better, which is a major problem in pop music today.
Of course, I can’t forget to include “What The Fuck!” and “So Godamned Good” which reminds me additionally of that corny eighties/nineties rapping that I’m so fond of, especially more these days with TeamHeadKick and other artists attempting to bring it back in a sort of battle against the delusional mumble rap scene. Lords Of Acid prove that they’ve still got the same degree of sexual fire that made them so relevant in the nineties and possibly to an even more varied degree today. Though it was a long time in the making, Pretty In Kink is definitely the band at their best and was well worth the wait for fans. Mastermind Praga Kahn and new vocalist Marieke Bresseleers knocked it out of the park with this one, melding sex with guitars and that same acidic sense that we’d expect from an act so monikered.