Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats at Fitzgerald Theater (February 13, 2025)

Back into the depths of the cold in the Minnesota winter, the Fitzgerald Theater was host to artists playing somewhat against expectations, headlined by Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats.

The opener was Jonathan Hultén. The Swedish singer and songwriter is a former guitarist for the metal band, Tribulation. It turns out his solo efforts have gone a much different direction. He’s been described as ambient folk, and it’s a strong emphasis on guitar and vocals. He came out a bit before the show to light incense sticks and had a flower/nature enclave he performed in. Hultén has programmed backing tracks to strengthen and support his lead work and it’s pretty excellent. As the first song ended with a twittering of birds, the second started with pipe organ sounds and multiple vocal harmonies. Hultén is a performer, a sort of black magic woodland muse. His newest album, Eyes of the Living Dead, was released as the end of January and well featured in this set.

Musically, it’s an ethereal sound that also trends towards a stripped down In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. He’s got good range as a singer, and I couldn’t help but think of a goth Nick Drake. I’m less than convinced that anyone needs to really lean into the autotune backing vocals, but it wasn’t ridiculously distracting or overused. Hultén alternated between solo singing and songs with guitar, which provided a nice visual transition between songs (or phases of songs). Lyrically, there’s a lot of darker themes, as you might expect (“I will die in the battle of souls”), but it’s sonically offset by that brighter folk sound. A late song gave him the chance to include some pretty good whistling and perhaps the most cheerful way of singing “haunting your dreams” that I can imagine. A simple bit of thanks for audience and headliner was the only speaking we got as Hultén headed into his final song.

English band Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is best known for their doom and psych rock in the tradition of Black Sabbath. With album titles like Blood Lust and Wasteland, they have 15 years under their belt with that heavy rock sound. And yet, like Hultén, we got a very different experience than their previous track record might have suggested. Their most recent album from last year, Nell’ Ora Blu, is the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist. But it’s not just any kind of soundtrack. The band has taken inspiration from the 70’s Italian giallo genre. These are dark murder mysteries that often have stark violence and often psychological horror, such as The Fifth Cord (starring Franco Nero) and Deep Red(directed by Dario Argento). And although there isn’t actually a movie, they did get some of the genre giants (the afore mentioned Nero, as well as Edwige Fenech) to record lines of dialogue that help carry the overall album story forward.

In many ways, that giallo inspiration gives Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats a scaffold to build a real vibe. Before the show, we got previews of classic giallo films, as well as a “preview” of the album’s critical reception. That nature scene that Hultén had was replaced by a seedy looking restaurant or bar. That screen in the back was central to the overall show, as they have really leaned into the movie feel. After a taped opening, the band (a sextet) entered and played their own instrumental. After some of that pre-recorded dialogue, the visuals supported a story when tied to the music. By the third song (La Vipera), we got vocals from Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats with Franco Nero on screen looking tough, and those transitions continued throughout the evening.

The next song, Vendetta, really nailed a movie’s interlude or extended theme. This is the moment where I understood the appeal of this project for the band. Deep bass hooks and driving guitar that cements the feel of the scuzzy world being shown on screen. Even though the recorded dialogue was in Italian with no subtitles, there was a definite vibe and the band would fall to the back or rise up as they went. That metal feel was present as they transitioned into Cocktail Party. And each song gave a different aspect to highlight, from a falsetto with female back harmonies of non-word vocals with a dreamy feel (Il tesoro di Sardegna) to a section featuring a keyboard lead and a sax solo. It’s a series of musical vignettes that has let the band explore a lot of ground that would seem really odd without the hook of the movie theme.

The mostly lyric free show let the band drift into those extended psych rock riffs and be fairly chill for a while in the middle of the set. Use of the onstage phones coordinated with the action on the scenes made for another transition to a more metal rock song with a lot of guitar work that had a lot of audience heads bopping along. More featured sax was an excellently timed song and moved into some heavier dialogue with Fenech and Nero. We got back to some heavier songs, with perhaps the best guitar solo of the evening. Some of these latter songs are probably most representative of Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats previous work, and it felt right as they continued through the latter section of the evening. A car chase on screen gave us a drum and bass heavy number, and it was clear we were moving towards the climax. After a calm, complete with children’s choir on screen, there was band credits run on screen and an encore of sorts to finish a pretty unique experience.