ACIDIC – Creatures

ACIDIC, a recently formed band from Southern California who has basically been releasing albums and playing shows nonstop since their inception, is coming out with another installment to their madness entitled Creatures. This album will be ACIDIC’s third collaboration with multi-platinum award-winning producer John Ryan of Chicago Kid Productions. He has produced the likes of Styx, Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Allman Brothers. Don’t let that list of names fool you, however. While ACIDIC does play a brand of rock that is rooted in the influences of old school giants such as these, it also has a contemporary spin all its own. For instance, the opening riff of the band’s current radio hit Chicago could be the beginning of a Def Leppard song until the beat breaks down and the vocals come in with a decidedly modern, punky tone. Overall, Creatures is a feel good album, a modern soundtrack for lazy, sunny southern California days. This is not to say that the album is slow, quite the opposite, but it is a mix of punk, pop, rock and dance music that sums up the melting pot that is the current So Cal sound. Straight forward-rock beats, and chunky strumming guitar licks, are paired with memorable vocal hooks on songs like Pop, which even contains the lyric “I dream of California.” Each song is unique in its own way though, bringing in all kinds of influences from Nirvana and Blind Melon to Styx and U2. Take a song like Beatness for example, it opens with an electronica style beat and then launches into music that sounds like the Beatles might have made it if they were still around. Coming off of successful performances on the Warped tour, rumor has it that these guys are even better live, so try to catch them on “The Creatures Tour,” which kicked off in Joplin, MO on July 17 and continues on through September after picking up a copy of Creatures.