“Brown Acid Vol. 13: The Thirteenth Trip” and “Scrap Metal Vol. 1” (Various Artists) Album Reviews
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
No matter which categories your hard rock music tastes fall in — from “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore” to “I don’t listen to anything recorded after 1989” to “I love discovering new, rare stuff” and beyond — RidingEasy Records has you covered with two recent compilation releases. Both albums are curated to be played loudly and proudly, and do they ever deliver the goods!
Brown Acid Vol. 13: The Thirteenth Trip is the latest in the label’s series of “long-lost, rare, and unreleased hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal tracks” from the 1960s and 1970s. You may never have heard of any of these bands before, but you won’t forget them easily after one listen to this collection.
You can use a tape roller or one of those fancy electric sweater shavers, but you’ll never be able to get all the fuzz off of you that this album’s guitar work will leave on you — nor would you want to. From the album’s groovy, get-up-and-dance opener “Run Run '' from Montreal’s Max to the closing track “Detroit '' from that city’s Good Humore, the rock never stops. There’s honestly not a dud track on this compilation. If you are a fan of blues-inspired, riff-heavy 1970s rock with influences leaning toward Led Zeppelin, Blue Cheer, and the like, you owe it to yourself to check out Brown Acid Vol. 13: The Thirteenth Trip. Warning: You may instantly want to order all 12 of its predecessors immediately and at the same time after hearing this one — the series is that good.
The fine folks at RidingEasy Records “often uncover equally brilliant rarities from the late-70s to late-80s Golden Age of Heavy Metal that also just must be heard, but they don’t fit the [Brown Acid] series’ aesthetic,” according to their press release for Scrap Metal Vol. 1. Thankfully, they have found it in their hearts to unleash this compilation of mighty metal — and it rocks mightily.
As with Brown Acid Vol. 13: The Thirteenth Trip, the chances that you may have previously heard of any of these bands is highly unlikely, unless you happened to live in the cities where they gigged and recorded their singles. No matter, because this collection will instantly catapult your ears back to the days of denim and leather, and throwing up the horns o’ rawk.
Many of these musicians are most likely people who — like yours truly — ordered the U.K. music magazine Kerrang! and bought new Judas Priest albums the moment they were released, along with imported records from New Wave of British Heavy Metal acts, at their local record store. Others are all about all-American metal like Motley Crüe and Ratt.
One thing I love about several of these songs is that the lyrics sound like the ones I wrote in high school. Lyrics glorifying the power of “headbanging” and “heavy metal” abound, and Priest-influenced Bay Area band Air Raid’s “69 in a 55” has the “Who needs a double entendre when only one will do?” ribald lyrics most teen rockers of that era sang out no matter who else was around.
Other influences range from Van Halen, Motӧrhead, Ted Nugent, and Manowar to — well, you name it and it you can probably hear homage from at least one band on here. And no heavy metal compilation from the 1970s and 1980s would be complete without a sword and sorcery tune, so Real Steel has you covered with their song “Viking Queen,” which boasts some of the oddest, most intriguing riffing and soloing on the album.
Here’s hoping that Scrap Metal Vol. 1 becomes as successful a series as Brown Acid, because folks like me who love discovering new-to-us music from the golden age of metal hunger for albums such as this.
Brown Acid Vol. 13: The Thirteenth Trip and Scrap Metal Vol. 1 from the RidingEasy Records label are available now. For more information, or to purchase the titles on vinyl or CD, visit
https://www.ridingeasyrecs.com/.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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