Too Much Acid? (Live)

Album review

Even though this live blast of Fiend madness obviously lacks the visual elements of the band's performances that makes them so memorable -- prosthetic organs and massive cobwebs are just the start of it -- Too Much Acid? answers its own question pretty easily. If the Fiends aren't necessarily ripped on LSD or anything else, the musical dementia on display becomes a handy substitute for the real thing. Recorded at various dates during the European leg for the Another Planet album, the set list is heavy on material from that and It, plus a number of singles cuts from around that time, demonstrating nicely that the group was far from a revival act even when most of its Batcave contemporaries had long since disappeared. The guitar/drum combination of new members Rat Fink, Jr. and Doctor Milton serves up the feedback and beat with power, while Mr. and Mrs. Fiend respectively rant and man the keyboards with their usual gusto. "I Walk the Line" gets a fierce rendition here, possibly even more unnerving than the studio take, while the It album track "Get Into It," on vinyl an amusing enough trifle, gets a better vocal and more bombastic rendition as a forceful call to the beat here. Things drag a bit in the middle, but starting with a solid rip through "Haunted House" (which if nothing else confirms that it isn't all that house, but has tons of samples), there's no holding back. "Smells Like..." isn't quite the equal of the original, but the beat is pounding, and Nik Fiend just goes off and then some. From there it's takes on the band's cover of "Hurricane Fighter Plane," the highly and entertainingly rude "Sample My Sausage" (aggrieved Blackadder sample fully intact) and, to close things out, a blast through the old B-side "Boneshaker Baby," here easily made the equal of most of the Cramps' back catalog.

© Ned Raggett /TiVo