Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Wasteland Rise aBove

Uncle Acid has seen the future, and it’s f**ked.

Led by frontman/ visionary Kevin Starr, Britain’s Deadbeats have quietly clawed their way through their ‘occult rock’ roots in the past few years, and are now tapping brave new worlds.

Wasteland, the psychedelic doom band’s fifth album, is a dystopian rock opera, basically, like a darker and drearier version of the Planet P Project (aka Tony Carey) album Pink World, full of fear and static and propaganda and annihilation zones, a nightmare world of grey skies and flickering video screens. And much like Carey’s 1984 prog-pop masterpiece, Uncle Acid uses the deceptively sweet melodies of late 70s AOR to hook you and draw you into his bleak and twisted tales. Hardcore doommetal dummies may not get with this new plan, but the combination of airy psychedelia, lumbering riffs and shamelessly poppy hooks turn headbangers like Shockwave City, Blood Runner and the epic, seven-minute title track into cinematic works of art.