Two years on from the mesmeric Nell’ Ora Blu, their synth-laden soundtrack for an imaginary Giallo movie, orphic Cambridge heavies Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats return with their seventh full-length, Shapes Of Midnight. A brilliantly macabre concept album partly inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque Of The Red Death and the too-real nightmares of our modern age, Shapes Of Midnight refines the group’s “Evil Beatles” sound: A thrilling, expertly composed fusion of eerie harmonies, pop hooks, Thin Lizzy-esque twin-guitar brilliance, and the kind of fleet-footed heaviness that’s become their trademark.

The album marks a return to the guitar-forward attack of their earlier records, but also an evolution. Their blessed invocation of proto-metal heaviness is gilded by blasts of uncanny melancholic pop, bruising NWOBHM gallop, jazzy textures and complexities, and Krautrock-y cro-magnon synth damage. It’s a deliciously dark listen, for sure; as songwriter Kevin Starrs says, “Our albums exist in an alternate universe to our own. They’re all stories that could happen here, but everything’s just a bit ‘off.”

As for the music, “Shapes of Midnight” sees the band adds boogie to their doomy sound, restoring speed to what Sabbath once slowed down. They maintain there evil funhouse vibe but living in that same retro horror space that Ghost once occupied before cleaning up their sound. The song features a psych-prog middle section that gestures suddenly to the space rock of Hawkwind, a heady and fitting addition to their sound continuing on from their synth-driven album Nell’ Ora Blu.

Shapes of Midnight Track List

1. House by the Grave
2. Shapes of Midnight
3. When Evil Wakes
4. Don’t Let It Control You
5. Psycho on the Loose
6. I Won’t Sleep (’til You’re Gone)
7. The Other Side of the Sky
8. Sleep No More

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat