May 27, 1997 by A.S. Van Dorston

A hugely influential stoner psych masterpiece.

Welsh band Acrimony has a name that sounds like a death metal band. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t quite connect with a loyal audience like Electric Wizard, even though they are massively important in hindsight. Their first album, Hymns To The Stone (1994) was a solid effort, somewhat derivative of Kyuss, but with their own touches of psychedelic and space rock. Tumuli Shroomaroom, however, was a stone stoned classic, complete with spine crushing heavy guitars and unusually memorable riffs and melodies to anchor the spacey bits. It evokes both Druidic rituals in ancient woods and heavy space psych, something that no one else was doing in 1997. The essential core DNA of Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer are there, of course, but the lead track “Hymns to the Stone” also invokes 90s doom band Cathedral. Mostly though, they take the rock ‘n’ psych of Fu Manchu and Kyuss and expand the templates into more epic territory. Even when the tracks don’t average ten minutes long, songs like “Million Year Summer” feel like big statements. The highlight is “Motherslug (The Mother of All Slugs),” which takes Monster Magnet via Hawkwind and points the ship toward the sun. Sleep paid keen attention to “Heavy Feather,” giving Matt Pike and Al Cisneros hazy hallucinations of desert gods telling them, “this is the way.” “Firedance” keeps the party going for another 13:19, an appropriate way to close the album and distort time and space.

Unfortunately, that was the last album the band made before breaking up, aside from the rarities collection, Bong On – Live Long! (2007). Former Acrimony members currently play in two new bands. Lee “Roy” Davies plays in southern rockers Lifer, and the rest formed Sigiriya, which continues the hard rock aspects of Acrimony without the spacey bits. It’s high time some sick little ballz-trippin’ Gen Z motherf**kers make them go viral on TikTok so they too can reunite and reap some just rewards.

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