Caustic Resin were one of the innovative bands to come out of Idaho during
the Seattle boom of the 1990s.
Led by singer and guitarist Brett Netson,
Caustic Resin played a raw, punchy, abrasive, psychedelic brand of garage-rock.
Their debut album, Body Love Body Hate (C/Z, 1993), explored
the history of hard psychedelic rock with multiple references to the
1960s:
the acid raga Drone is reminiscent
of both the Doors and early
Pink Floyd,
while echoes of Blue Cheer and
Guess Who surface from the smoking and
roaring garage-rock of Chainsaw.
The somnolent seven-minute psychedelic blues All Filling sounds like
a noisy remix of
the Shondells's Crimson And Clover
and the
nine-minute Spinedog-Re drowns a catchy melody in
excoriating
jamming that merges Cream and
Jimi Hendrix
and gets wilder and wilder.
Bassist Tom Romich and drummer James Manny provide adequate backing for
Netson's visceral rants.
It helps that the album sounds like it was recording in a sewer, with guitars
drenched in sewage.
Starting in 1994,
Netson also played bass for Built To Spill.
Thanks to a more professional sound
Fly Me To The Moon (C/Z, 1995) showed more rhythmic strength and
more cohesive guitar work
while taming their combination of acid-rock and grunge with poppier melodies, especially in Spore and Alien Fugue, sometimes losing the entire
power of their sound (like in the moronic Golden Hours).
At best, this "softer" sound evokes
a more psychedelic Neil Young, like in Kill You If You Want Me To.
They still have the explosive force of the debut, and show it in the
garage-rock Cancerous Eyes.
The seven-minute Damaged Animal is a drunk cakewalk for four minutes before soaring in a fiery rave-up.
Brett Netson's guitar work shines in the unbridled psychedelic mayhems of Healing Cough and Calling Off the Dogs (possibly the standout).
The incendiary eight-minute tour de force of Station Wagon matches between a Rolling Stones-ian rhythm and a
Dinosaur Jr-esque guitar crescendo.
However, the album contains more filler than the debut, and rarely matches
the same degree of savagery.
The Medicine Is All Gone (Alias, 1998) is the howl of an isolated soul.
Netson's smoking guitar is now the equivalent of a gospel singer.
A powerful Neil Young-grade angst detonates Cable, that sets the
martial, sorrowful pace for the rest of the album, all the way to the closer
Enough that is pure guitar noise strafe.
The depression's nadir is reached in the agonizing blues Your Lie.
A pathetic melody lifts Niacin, almost a sendup of David Bowie's
Space Oddity in a maelstrom of distortions.
The mellower, melodic side surfaces also in Once And Only
and in the epic country ballad Man From Michigan
But a hypnotic slumber seems to envelop every sweet moment.
What doesn't work are the numerous imitations of early Pink Floyd.
Hold Your Head Up is a cover of an old Argent song.
The material on
Trick Question (Alias, 1999) is underwhelming.
The songs are either unfocused
(Eventhings),
repetitive
(the seven-minute Unlucky)
or uninspired (California).
An excess of psychedelic dilation leaves Taste lifeless,
and even the nine-minute Torture Yourself is overlong and not quite a fuzz-fest worthy of its predecessors.
The After Birth (Alias, 2000) marks a return to the rawer, bluesier
sound of Fly Me To The Moon with the likes of Violent Game.
It is "searching" music, at the same time meditative and neurotic, exploring
disturbed states of mind with inquisitive vocals that sound like a
psychologist's report and feverish guitars that sound like patients in pain.
Longdrive Jam and Creedence Jam display the band's talent at
best, but the more propulsive Violent Game and Rotten Man
generate more combustion.
Their career ended with the mediocre
Keep On Truckin' (2003).
The catchiest melody surfaces in Wizard of the Upper Snake River, but soon buried
in a distorted guitar inferno.
On the other hand, the ten-minute Keep on Truckin repeats a tedious litany and indulges in pointless noisy jamming.
Drive #47 is a modest slab of stoner-rock.
The country lament Fry Like Ace Jones, a cross of the
Rolling Stones
and Neil Young, is perhaps the most interesting song here.
Netson had already formed
the Suffocation Keep, which recorded
John Hughes Was Never So Wrong (2002) and
A Few Minor Modifications of the Stars (2004).
He later joined the
Sleepy Seeds.
