Blood Lust

This is the second album by the band Kevin Starrs started in Cambridge in 2009. It went out in a small run on his own Killer Candy Records, spread by word of mouth, and was picked up by Rise Above Records in 2012 and by Metal Blade in the United States. The band's name comes from Uncle Acid and the Permanent Damage Band, a later group of Rusty Day of Cactus. The target is the sound of the end of the 1960s, and it was recorded on instruments and equipment of that period. What comes out is the moment psychedelic rock rolled toward the dark, before heavy metal had a shape, with layer upon layer of sweet singing over distorted guitar. Their label described it as the early Alice Cooper band jamming in a cell with early Black Sabbath and the Stooges. The words are murder, ritual and revenge from end to end. From "I'll Cut You Down" to "Withered Hand of Evil" the story stays bloody while the melodies stay close to pop. The running order here is the eight songs of the self-released pressing; from the reissue that December it became nine with "Down to the Fire" added. Starrs has said that nobody expected it to travel as far as it did.