Alchemysts-One Eyed Again (1995)

 

Artist: Alchemysts

Title: One Eyed Again

Label: Behemoth Records

Format: CD

Cat #: BET 16

Year of Release: 1995

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1995

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 7/27/21

Sell Price: $3.99

Discogs Last Sold: 6/6/21

Low:$2.12

Median: $4.76

Average: $4.99

High: $9.52

Current low price: $3.99

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 10

Have/Want: 32/9

Where Sold: Dunkirk, NY

Time it took to sell: 10 years

Where and When Bought: bought used on internet early aughts

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go: No

A few months back I heard word from drummer Mat Love wondering if Rubric was still active and if we could get their pre-Rubric titles into the streaming realm for mass consumption.  I happened to be with Kenny unloading some of his gear back into the rehearsal space, and now it seems like Tee Pee has indeed done the digital reissue.  This CD originally came out in 1995 on Behemoth Records famously known for issuing a couple Drunks WIth Guns titles and I bought this mail order.  This was the cheap to get one, the Camera Obscura one went for import prices.  Now people can hear this by the mere click of a button instead of waiting a couple weeks for it to come in the mail.

But this buyer bought a large stack of titles I've had on my storage shelf the past decade, and I was looking forward to spend a bit of time and attention to One Eyed Again for the first time in 20 years.  When Rubric issued Zero Zen through Woronzow in the US back in 2000,  I listened to that in full quite a bit, but this one I didn't spend alot of time on. No time like the present! 

My first time I saw the Alki's were at the London Terrastock in 1999, and I thought they were the best band I didn't know up until that point.  So Rubric put out Woronzow's non-Bevis stuff for the US to get the new company off the ground.  Kenny set up a punishing tour with Aytobach Kreisor and Alchemysts that I flew out to join the tour in progress on the West coast leg SF to LA.  I remember arriving with a sunburn and Reno, Davis and Sacramento were all in between.  The finest floors were slept on from Kenny's brother Oliver's house in Reno to Jello's palatial mansion where the story of Jello descending in the morning down a spiral staircase is forever seared in my brain, although I slept elsewhere that warm San Franciscian night.

So yeah this is a very young sounding Alkies (1991-1993 rumor has it) that evolved into a high quality grunge meets psych.  The elements are here,  with even some mainstream (!) elements echoing like The Cult and even Black Sabbath during "Blind Side.".  I think I thought of  the Cult or "Dancing On Your Grave" by Motorhead for "Cuff Link" although the psych part doesn't sound like that at all.  The song that keeps sticking out for me on these listens is "A Road" which seem a little out of chraracter.  Paul Simmons isn't much of a screamer but he's in downright melodic territory here., The solo sounds out of the Dinosaur Jr. family, but there's something about this delivery I can't quite place.  If you want an epic, they've got "Stoned In Jerusalem" for you.

This one further reminds me I need to put some time into The Cravats.