It’s an usually busy week for Dax Riggs. Most unexpectedly of all, his legendary ’90s sludge metal band Acid Bath just announced their first show in nearly 30 years! They’ll make their return at Las Vegas metal festival Sick New World in April 2025, where they’ll play alongside Metallica, Linkin Park, Queens of the Stone Age, The Sisters of Mercy, Tomahawk, Refused, and tons of others. Dax says:
The Bath will return April 12, 2025 at Sick New World Festival. Our heads are literally EXPLODING! We’ll be playing select songs from our two full length LPs for this special one time show. See you there fiends, let the blackness roll on….
A video from guitarist Sammy Duet confirms the band’s lineup will be Dax, Sammy, and fellow co-founding guitarist Mike Sanchez, with Alex Bergeron (of Dax’s short-lived, post-Acid Bath band Agents of Oblivion) on bass and Zack Simmons (of Sammy’s long-running, post-Acid Bath band Goatwhore) on drums. Original drummer Jimmy Kyle is not taking part in the reunion. The band also have a new website.
UPDATE: A second Acid Bath festival appearance has been announced: Sonic Temple.
Acid Bath were originally around between 1991 and 1997 and they released two albums, 1994’s When the Kite String Pops and 1996’s Paegan Terrorism Tactics, before breaking up after the death of bassist Audie Pitre. In 2005, they released a compilation of the many demos that they released between 1993 and 1996. Dax calls this a “special one time show,” so we won’t hold our breath for more but we’ll definitely be keeping our fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, Dax also just announced his first solo album in 15 years, 7 Songs For Spiders, due January 24 via Bright Shadow/Fat Possum (pre-order). The first single is the fuzzed-out desert rock of “Deceiver,” which Dax describes as “some kind of country and western doom ballad concerning that little light inside each of us–a celebratory turning away from the darkness and hypocrisy of the established gods of old.” Check it out below. Dax’s last solo LP was 2010’s Say Goodnight to the World.
The album was recorded at Dax’s Southern Louisiana studio The Building with his band–Lucas Broussard (guitar, synth), Kane Cormier (bass), and Scott Domingue (percussion)–and mixed by Dax and Lucas. Jerry Businelli of Dax’s pre-Acid Bath band Golgotha plays guitar on “Deceiver” and “Even the Stars Fall,” and Jason Harrington played an electronic wind instrument on “Blues For You Know Who” and fiddle on “Ain’t That Darkness.” The album description says it was “inspired by world music, gospel, hillbilly and proto metal sounds with an undercurrent of rebellious joy.”
Dax Riggs – 7 Songs For Spiders Tracklist
Deceiver
Sunshine Felt The Darkness Smile
Even The Stars Fall
Blues For You Know Who
Ain’t That Darkness
Pagan Moon
Graveyard Soul
https://www.instagram.com/p/DBJyPDiPzlB/?hl=en