Album Review : King Buffalo - Acheron (2021)
Psychedelic rock is a musical genre that abides by its own set of rules. It isn’t bound by any restriction of time or structure. It doesn’t tell stories in the way normal rock songs tell stories. It’s an exploration of possibilities within a loose narrative construct. The genre has been largely coopted into stoner rock and to a lesser extent doom metal in the twenty-first century, but a few, proud purist bands have perfected the sound within more contemporary boundaries.
Bands like Rochester-based trio King Buffalo who knocked it out of the park on their new album Acheron.
King Buffalo always flirted with the lengthier, more freewheeling side of their music without ever fully committing to it. Albums like Orion, Longing to Be the Mountain and Dead Star had their lengthier material, but never really celebrated their knack for the looser, more contemplative stuff. Do they ever correct the course on Acheron. This album consists in four 10 minutes tracks each trippier and sonically more exploratory than the last. It is fucking awesome.
Acheron opens with the title song, which is lead by this smooth, meditative guitar riff and Sean McVay’s voice crooning about waking up in underground landscapes and following a river. Three minute in, it kicks into a series of distorted riffs each slightly different from one another, offering layer over layer of sonic storytelling. There’s a keyboard chiming in about seven minutes in, which gives a whole other perspective to it. It’s gorgeous. It’s a great trip to take.
This is the thing about psychedelic rock: it expresses itself through time and space. One riff will only make sense compared to the other. It has several different moving parts that dialogue with one another. Some are cleaner, some are more aggressive or tortured. There’s a dramatic progression to it. But unlike a conventional rock song, you have to intuitively understand it through the music. It isn’t package wrapped for you. King Buffalo understand this very, very well.
My least favorite song on the record (which is still very, very good) is perhaps the follow-up Zephyr, which has this upbeat, bombastic quality to it. it almost feels like… Brit Pop? Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty great but it weirdly clashes with the more brooding, meditative tone of Acheron. The lyrics are great. They talk of giving yourself in to the elements and whatnot. It just feels a little too warm and fuzzy? There’s a clash of textures to it that just gets in the way.
The last two songs on the record Shadows and Cerberus are absolutely stunning. The latter in particular is this powerful odyssey where Scott Donaldson’s drum work and Dan Reynolds’ bass create this very expansive, dramatic space for Sean McVay’s guitar riffs to slice through. At some point he veers off power chords (which are a constant on this album) to attack a more melodic segment, which ended the record on a high note. It felt like a conclusion to a eventful journey.
Shadows is pretty great too. It deals with more nuanced sounds and feelings. Echos and reverberation give it a feeling of desolateness. The lyrics deal very much with the aftermath of the storm on Zephyr: a broken ship, weariness, feelings of confusion. It might not have the universal appeal of Acheron or Cerberus, but it is a real mood enhancer. If you feel low or lost, Shadows has cathartic value to offer. It is attuned to certain precise emotions that don’t quite have a name.
*
Acheron is, to my opinion, King Buffalo’s best record to date. It is what they do best: being spacey and explorative of different structures and melodic possibilities. The songs range from very good to fucking godlike. The production is also quite solid. Guitars bugged me a little bit. They have this crackling sound whenever the song climaxes, like it is playing through blown speakers. No doubt it was by design, but I feel like it robbed the song of some bombastic potential.
This is also a great drug record. I don’t advocate for anything, but if you’re into psilocybin like I am… man, this record will make you see and feel stuff you haven’t quite seen and felt before. I’ve felt myself shooting off the ground and into the air many, many times to the sound of these shamanistic guitar riffs. If you’re into psychedelic songs, vibing to never-ending riffs and just feeling out the music, King Buffalo does it better than anyone right now on Acheron.
