For 15 years Cambridge’s own Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats have been taking the molecule of psychedelic, doom, and hard rock to its knees, combining the ingredients of Alice Cooper, Iggy & The Stooges and early Sabbath into one. They had released five studio albums from 2010 to 2018. The energy is still there, but now after six years with the release of their Wasteland album, things are about to take a turn for the Deadbeats.
This time, it’s a tribute to the ‘70s Italian cinema. Paying nod to both the poliziotteschi and giallo genre (action and horror cinema), it seems like an odd idea, but it works like a charm on their sixth studio album Nell’ Ora Blu (In the Blue Hour). Released on Lee Dorrian’s label Rise Above Records which has been a huge home for our fellow space cadets, the Deadbeats take up the torch from the realms of Goblin, Fabio Frizzi, Alain Goraguer, Carlo Rustichelli, John Carpenter, and The Doors.
The fact for the band to make a big leap to honour the filmmakers who were a part of that scene. Ranging from Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Fernando Di Leo, the Deadbeats have proven fans that they are more than just a doom metal band, but taking leaps to see where the new direction will take them to. For example, the bossa-nova groove on ‘La Vipera’ sounds like something that was left off the recording sessions of the score to Blood and Black Lace.
It then changes into a brutal ‘60s garage rock attitude, mellotron strings setting up the trap for the victim to fall into, spaghetti western atmospheres, and David Axelrod arrangements that blends perfectly well to put you on the edge of your seat to find out what happens next. Then, everything falls into place with a brutal force awakening with the intensive tango, farfisa organs, synthesisers and menacing bass and guitar riffs on ‘Giustizia Di Strada’, ‘Vendetta (Tema)’, and the title-track.
There’s something familiar with this piece as the Deadbeats channel the score to the French Adult-Animated sci-fi 1973 cult classic Fantastic Planet while the dial tone and calling up someone to tell them what has happened with ‘La Bara Restera Chiusa’ makes it a bone-chilling sequence. And to be allowed to have actors such as Django’s Franco Nero, Luc Merenda, and Edwige Fenech to name a few, you vision this as a movie inside your head.
It was like seeing an old friend you haven’t seen on the big screen for a very long, long time. You can imagine why both Joe Dante and Quentin Tarantino would’ve picked a film like this at the Beverly Cinema to show for a midnight screening, to give film-goers a complete understanding on why this imaginative film was so far ahead of its time.
Elsewhere, ‘Solo La Morte Ti Ammanetta’ returns to its Occult-like approach, knowing that the detectives are on the right case with high ascending melody. Yes, the clues that the criminal has given them are very tricky, but they manage to solve it, piece by piece.
‘Il Gatto Morto’ puts us inside this white room with full, hard light. It reflects the damaged momentum the person goes through with eerie vocalisations, sinister guitar overtones, picked bass, harsh-like riffs, jazzy saxophones, and an ascending rise. I felt this tug between Rosalie Cunningham’s approach on her first two solo albums by teaming up with fellow prog maestros Astra that comes to mind whilst recording an album for the Rune Grammofon label.
Nell’ Ora Blu is a terrifying and resourceful release Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats have unleashed to make you understand why they can push the envelope with an impressive film score by knocking down the Marvel Cinematic Universe off the charts with real cinema at its best.
