Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: The much-missed British stoner rock outfit Acrimony released their last studio full-length in 1996’s Tumuli Shroomaroom. Splits followed with Iron Rainbow and Church of Misery, and the Leaf Hound Records compilation Bong on – Live Long! followed in 2007, but the band effectively broke up in 2002, so the return of four out of the original five Acrimony members in the new band Sigiriya is welcome news for any worshiper of the riff, whether they were a fan of Acrimony or not. Only guitarist Lee Davies is missing from Sigiriya’s debut, Return to Earth, released via The Church Within Records, but the remaining four-piece is no less cohesive for the lack of a second guitar.
Because it’s essentially the same band, they’ll inevitably be compared to Acrimony, and on that level, Sigiriya boast a crunchier sound, less geared toward psychedelia or excursions in the stoner caravan of yore. Stuart O’Hara who was also in Iron Monkey leads the way with thickened riffs, and vocalist Dorian Walters rides the formidable grooves expertly on Return to Earth’s seven tracks, while bassist Paul “Mead” Bidmead and drummer Darren Ivey inject a surprisingly metallic feel to ‘Dark Fires’ and ‘Robot Funeral’,” marking a serious change in ethic from what one might have expected in an Acrimony offshoot.
But then, it has been nine years, and one expects that if the intent of O’Hara, Walters, Bidmead and Ivey had been to simply recapture Acrimony’s sound, they’d have just reunited under that name, rather than start a completely new band. Sigiriya is clearly meant to be its own entity, and it winds up being just that. Familiar elements show up, but tracks like ‘Whiskey Song’ or the brazenly catchy opener ‘The Mountain Goat’ have an appeal surprisingly distinct from anything Acrimony ever did.
Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Sigiriya, Return to Earth: Ex-Acrimony Members Get Terrestrial on Debut Album.
(Courtesy of JJ Koczan / The Obelisk).
Tags: Acrimony, JJ Koczan, Return to Earth, Sigiriya, The Church Within Records, The Obelisk
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 2nd, 2011 at 3:07 am and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
No Responses to “Album of the day: Sigiriya – Return to Earth”