Lords of Acid – Voodoo-U [1994; American Recordings, Antler-Subway, Caroline Records, Mad Vox, WHTE LBLS]

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With their second album, Lords of Acid tighten up the sprawl of electronic styles they explored with Lust, and find a tighter combination of high-speed techno, Euro breakbeat, sultry vocals, and sexual lyrics.  Absurd perversity (e.g., being brought to orgasm by pubic lice in “The Crablouse”) is a frequent quality, and one that the group is careful not to let get drowned out by the barrages of keyboards, percussion, and samples.  BDSM (”Do What You Wanna Do”, ”She & Mr. Jones”), drugs (”Marijuana in Your Brain”, “Blowing Up Your Mind”), teen sex (”Young Boys”), and a range of related topics receive focus over the course of the album, with a brashness echoed by the occasional use of electric guitar loops for extra swagger. 

Dips into fully-functional dub territory, music-box imitation, and nods to disco serve as further accentuation of the group’s playfulness, but it’s rare for the songs to let that silliness rob them of their ability to bang on strong.  While a track or two could have been dropped for more concentrated impact, the album taken all together has a nice flow to it, jumping from groove to groove without sinking too deeply into repetitiveness and dropping in enough instrumental breaks to keep the lyrical goofiness on the right side of overwhelming. 

Here’s the censored cover art.

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The cover art used in Japan.

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And the cover art used for the remastered edition.

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