June 11, 2026

Acid Bath played Roadrunner – 5/30

Louisiana sludge metal legends Acid Bath played their first Boston show in nearly 30 years with a stacked bill of support from Napalm Death, Pig Destroyer, Primitive Man and Final Gasp.

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Particularly given the proximity of their similarly-unlikely reunions, the tragic stories of Acid Bath and Silkworm bear some eerie parallels. Both were beloved cult bands of the ’90s, albeit in wildly different circles, whose stories were cut abruptly short by the death of a core member in an auto accident. For Acid Bath, it was bassist Audie Pitre, whose 1997 passing marked the end of a genuinely singular band after just six years and two records. The group fused the NOLA sludge fundamentals of contemporaries like Eyehategod with shards of everything from death metal to gothic balladry and warped grunge, all of which wrapped around frontman Dax Riggs’ evocative, unsettling lyrics like a discomforting blanket. Acid Bath’s was a sound both familiar and alien – and never quite replicated during an absence that appeared very much permanent until last year.

Unlike Silkworm, whose reunion has them comfortably playing the same types of clubs they frequented back in the day as if they never left, Acid Bath’s influence and stature have grown such that high-profile festival gigs and some fairly huge rooms have greeted them upon their return. Fans who had spent years or decades poring over the sordid grooves of 1994’s When the Kite String Pops and its ’96 followup Paegan Terrorism Tactics have turned out in droves to finally see those songs live. And in a bucking of the conventional reunion tour concept, the band haven’t hit the road so much as played an extended series of one-offs around the country and overseas, making each gig feel like a distinct event. Typically spaced out by a week or more, the schedule seems to give the crew – which now consists of Riggs and guitarists Sammy Duet and Mike Sanchez joined by drummer Zack Simmons and bassist Shane Wesley (of fellow veteran Louisiana bands Goatwhore and Crowbar, respectively) – time to breathe and recoup between shows. Given the intensity of their Roadrunner set at the end of last month, it wasn’t difficult to see why they’d prefer it that way.

There were the songs themselves of course – dense, devastatingly heavy and demanding in their knotty dynamic shifts – but the emotional weight of a reunion without a key member and of the passage of nearly 30 years between iterations of the band also hung in the air. Much of this channeled through Riggs, whose aura I could best describe as “haunted.” During the songs he was commanding, with a voice that still snapped from a Layne Staley-esque croon to a throat-shredding scream, but between them he spoke infrequently with a sort of quiet gravitas. “We love you, we always did,” he told the crowd at one point. Perhaps it’s a strange thing to say about a band who slapped a John Wayne Gacy painting on the cover of their first record and whose lyric sheets would be classified by most civilized people as “nightmarish,” but the set felt poignant.

In another advantage to their unconventional touring schedule, these shows have given Acid Bath the chance to assemble unique supporting bills for various shows rather than touring with a traditional package of openers. For Boston, that meant a five-band night that had the air of of a miniature festival. Local death-rockers Final Gasp kicked things off, and had a sizable and enthusiastic crowd for their rowdy, scythe-wielding set. Denver trio Primitive Man changed things up with their gnarly sludge-doom, as suffocating and uncompromising a set as you’re ever likely to see in a room like Roadrunner. Grindcore legends Pig Destroyer followed up, playing their first Boston gig in nearly a decade and cramming 20-some-odd songs of compact, ear-shredding mania into their set. And finally, it was U.K. vets Napalm Death’s turn to traverse their 40-year history of politically-charged deathgrind. Frontman Barney Greenway, who appears to be aging in reverse, enthusiastically led the band through a lean set that ended with a nearly-unrecognizable but nonetheless spirited cover of the Dead Kennedys classic “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.” (And any gig where you get to hear all two seconds of “You Suffer” live is an automatic win).

Check out an exhaustive visual recap of the night below.

Acid Bath: