Psychedelic Doom Band Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats Play UC Theatre

By Dave Pehling

BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- Celebrated British psychedelic doomsayers Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats return to the Bay Area for the first time in over two years when their headlining tour with fellow heavy-psych band King Buffalo comes to the UC Theatre Friday.

Over the course of a 13 year career, the group has risen from a fledgling bedroom studio project to become one of the more celebrated modern metal exports from the U.K. playing today. Founded by principle songwriter Kevin "K.R." Starrs, the shadowy group from Cambridge initially garnered notice in 2009 with a few catchy, fuzz-drench songs, posted on the band's MySpace page.

Entreaties from fans for an album led to an an extremely limited-edition CD-R entitled simply Volume 1 that showcased tuneful proto-metal dirges that matched memorable Beatles-esque vocal melodies to pulverizing riffs. A second self-released album – 2011's sonic homage to classic Hammer Films horror Blood Lust – further refined Starrs' songwriting and scored Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats a deal with Rise Above Records.

For its ambitious 2013 follow-up effort Mind Control, Starr drew inspiration from '60s exploitation flicks and the murderous machinations of hippy cult leader Charles Manson to craft a diabolically listenable concept album. The band made its stateside debut when it played the Maryland Death Fest the following year, later returning to the U.S. for a fall tour that marked the first time most metal fans in the U.S. got a chance to see the group.

The band continued with the concept-album route on its next recording, 2015's The Night Creeper, which told the tale of a serial killer styled after Jack the Ripper. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats hit a new high with their most recent collection, 2018's more sophisticated Wasteland. Tracked at the same Los Angeles studio where the Beach Boys recorded Pet Sounds, the album expanded the band's instrumental palette with extensive use of keyboards and a much more dynamic range of moods. While the band was forced to postpone it's planned Spring 2020 headlining tour of the U.S., the band finally returns to stages stateside two years later with support from Rochester, New York-based heavy psych power trio King Buffalo.

Formed in 2013 by guitarist/singer Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds and drummer Scott Donaldson, the band weaves together elements of melodic psychedelia indebted to pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd, progressive experimentation and riff-focused stoner rock to craft its unique sound.

The trio embraced extended song forms from the beginning, as revealed by the epic, echo-laden 11-minute jam "Providence Eye" that closed their debut demo that they self-released to sell at shows the band performed on the East Coast. King Buffalo would gradually build up a solid following in New York state with steady touring and a string of EP and album releases starting with the band's self-titled three-song effort that was also released as a split with like-minded Swedish psych-blues outfit Le'Betre.

The trio's 2016 full-length album Orion seemed to be the first to truly put King Buffalo on the radar of a wider audience, garnering ecstatic reviews from a variety of online publications and blogs praising McVay's gift for compelling guitar atmospherics and catchy choruses. And while they continued to revel in gradual, more languid song development on extended cuts like the album closing "Drinking from the River Rising," the trio also showed they could be as direct and punchy as any current rock crews on driving anthems like "Kerosene."

The band was soon bringing its music abroad as the threesome launched their first extensive tours of Europe the following year (they have shared stages with such heavy rock and modern psych luminaries as the Sword, All Them Witches and Elder).

Subsequent releases including the follow-up album Longing to Be the Mountain and the Repeater and Dead Star EPs further cemented King Buffalo's status as one of the premiere band's of the American psychedelic underground. With the COVID-19 pandemic eliminating the possibility of touring last spring, the trio decided to focus on filming a number of "Quarantine Sessions" posted to YouTube and writing new material for what was announced as three full albums of new songs in 2021.

The first of the three albums -- entitled The Burden of Restlessness -- came out in June to another round of euphoric reviews hailing the album as the trio's finest effort yet. While the pandemic-related vinyl pressing delays currently plaguing the music industry appear to be forcing the band's third planned album to be released in 2022, they recently announced they've already recorded the second record of four extended tracks live inside a cave, continuing the potent trio's current creative tear.

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats with King Buffalo
Friday, March 18, 8 p.m. $31
UC Theatre