Jumping up and down in my chair, listening to everything kick in on the first track of Acid Fast‘s Rabid Moon, it’s like that first time I heard Ned’s Atomic Dustbin doing “Kill Your Television” on 120 Minutes — I am happy, I am elated, and I’m wondering how this band figured out how to make such catchy music sound so dark.
Acid Fast demonstrate time and time again they know how to make you anticipate, then lose your shit. It’s not quite build and release, but more of a sense of knowing when you can drop out certain sonic elements to emphasize the others. Case in point: if a band has a song called “Shred Forever,” there damn well better be a guitar solo, and while it’s not quite what you’d expect, it’s there, and it’s boss.
It’s super-exciting fun party music. This is a band that’s made for house shows. I don’t mean that Acid Fast should stick to small venues — no, no, no. I mean that they’re a band that’s perfectly suited to getting sloppy drunk and stealing the mic from to sing along. The grammar in that sentence couldn’t be any worse, but you get what I’m saying: this is a band I want to see up close, loud, and fuzzy.
Basically, I would pay good money to be able to drunkenly air guitar the instrumental break in the middle of “Descending.” If you like Lemuria or Shang-A-Lang, or pop-punk with ’90s college rock influences, or just really amazingly great drumming, you should totally take a listen to Rabid Moon.
Acid Fast’s Rabid Moon is available from their webstore on black or green vinyl, CD, and cassette.