ACL Live Shot (Second Weekend): Black Angels

Black Angels frontman Alex Maas (by Jana Birchum)

The Black Angels have nurtured a long, fearless catalog. They’re responsible for the consistently mind-blowing Austin Psych Fest. They might be the only band in history to make screeching, acid-washed psych-rock without looking like a bunch of art school dropouts.

And yet under the hot afternoon sun of the locals’ second weekend at ACL Fest, bathed in anus-destroying humidity, I came away with very little. Given the right sort of loudness, and in the right sort of darkness, the Black Angels’ foghorn riffage can feel like a religious experience. Daylight mitigates that menace.

Patience for the musically divine can be elusive when you’re worried about whether or not you’ll be able to detach your pants from your body later. Intermittent cloud cover notwithstanding, it wasn’t a pleasant Friday afternoon in Zilker Park. The Black Angels’ blear didn’t improve matters.

Which isn’t to say they weren’t heavy, and that the few fans gathered at the Bud Light stage weren’t sated. Unfortunately, the horde of indifferent Queens of the Stone Age fans gathering for the next set killed any potential vibes. This was just one of those music festival sets, the kind that turn to dust as soon as they hit organic matter.