The reason I know that heavy metal is better than sex is because I get very vocal when the metal is good. I don’t just mean I sing along. I make noises and exclaim about certain parts of songs. Within the first three songs of Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats’ new album Shapes of Midnight I had uttered an “oof!”, declared “that’s fucking sick” and marvelled at “the fucking strut on that!”, likely making my fellow commuters on the walk to work very concerned about what kind of weirdo was marching around nearby.

Now let’s get this out of the way: Uncle Acid are resolutely a retro band, you’re not going to hear anything brand new and fresh on this record. But I tend to classify retro bands into three categories. First and worst are bands who just wish they were another, better band. You know the ones. They just play songs that sound like songs Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, or some other classic band wouldn’t have let on their records because they weren’t good enough. Second and slightly better are the jukebox bands – they have songs that sound like a variety of different bands from a particular era. The different vibes help keep things a little more interesting, but ultimately it’s just regurgitating ideas from decades ago. Uncle Acid fit into the third, and best, category. They understand what makes all the bands they love good, and combine those elements into songs that use them in new and different ways. While they are reminiscent of their inspirations, the songs are unmistakably unique and couldn’t have been made by those bands.

Uncle Acid worship at the altar of the music from the seventies where the line between hard rock and heavy metal was so blurry as to be almost indistinguishable at times. Across Shapes of Midnight, they draw from Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Thin Lizzy, early Judas Priest, Deep Purple and probably many other bands I’m too young to know exist. Uncle Acid are absolute masters of the craft, as they should be on their seventh album refining their sound.

Opener House By The Grave, slides from feedback straight into a fuzzy, groovy stoner riff with the unmistakable high pitched, haunting vocal harmonies. Touches of keyboard fill out the chorus textures, highlighting and emphasising the hook. After the second chorus we get out first Iommi worthy doom riff. If you’re not headbanging at this point, there’s no saving you. As the guitar solo fades out, things die down to simple hi-hat grooves and swirling synths, then the fast riff comes in. That’s when I let out my first noise – a simple “oof!”. It hit me as hard as the outro riff to Black Sabbath, but with an organ line following the guitars, it stirred in enough of a Deep Purple flavour to keep it fresh.

The title track follows with a swaggering riff and propulsive bass line, elegantly enhanced by backing vocals into the chorus. But it’s when the song picks up the pace in the second half that things get truly spectacular. Synths again fill the texture of the song out before perfectly harmonised guitars lead us into an all-timer of a solo. But it’s a riff that follows immediately after the first solo that had me declaring “that’s fucking sick”. The harmonised guitars climb up, then down, then up again before rocking back and forth between two chords, eventually resolving the phrase back to it’s starting point. It’s brilliant, a trick that metal bands have been employing for the genre’s entire history and Uncle Acid have done it to the absolute highest level here.

When Evil Wakes slides in with a seductive, menacing riff and very quickly delivers my favourite lyric of the album. “Psycho shill in his shiny boots, won’t you lick them clean? Does it taste the same when you know where they’ve been?” The hazy organ the follows the refrain is spectacular but the song truly arrives at its peak when the strutting riff propelled by an incredible bass line hits in the second half. Yes, that part is what got my third exclamation. The song ends on an extended instrumental with excellent guitar harmonies closing us out again.

Let’s take a break from the blow by blow to talk about the bass on this album. The production gives it lots of room to breath and be present – an art lost in a lot of modern metal production. It’s not going for Geezer Butler style bass-as-a-lead-instrument, but it doesn’t just follow the guitars all the way through. It finds the space it needs to be in and holds the low end down perfectly, adding so much groove and soul to the record with plenty of fills to spice things up. It’s perfect.

Getting back to specific songs, Don’t Let It Control you is a Paranoid/Highway Star style rager. Simple, fast (a tempo a lot of bands who take inspiration from this era struggle with), and relatively short. The keyboards really come into their own here, adding a little spice to what could be a very simple song. Combined with the backing vocals and a spectacular drum performance bringing in enough variety to keep this simple track. The snare groove into the final crescendo is a masterclass in just how great a drummer Uncle Acid have on their hands.

Psycho On The Loose should have been on the Teenage Sex and Death At Camp Miasma soundtrack. That synth intro is so reminiscent of classic slashers, the lyrical content is perfect for the subject matter of that film, and I can’t believe that the Thin Lizzy-esque guitar harmonies at the start of the song wouldn’t win over film goers. The chorus gloriously manages to make “news” and “choose” rhyme with “loose”. Now you might be saying that those two words already rhyme with each other, but that would be the cowards way out. It just helps make the best chorus on the album even better.

I Won’t Sleep (‘Til You’re Gone) as a booty-shaker if I’ve ever heard one. The guitars ride the bass line perfectly, letting the vocals float over the top, worming their way into your brain with their bitter harmonies. I’ve always been a sucker for rock songs that feature saxophones, and the restrained soloing over the menacingly whispered outro refrain gets added to the pantheon of great sax usage in heavy music. It’s a really nice pay off for the song before it collapses in on itself, leaving us in the rubble of spooky ambience.

After a moment of respite like that, it’s nice to immediately come back with something with more drive. The Other Side Of The Sky delivers with another solid, consistent bass performance which lets the guitars explore more textures around it. This includes a rather nice clean tone under the chorus and solo. I will say that while the song is good, it’s got the least exciting moments on the record, so as much as I appreciate the sequencing of placing it here, it’s a noticeably weaker moment on the record.

That said, Sleep No More picks up the quality from an eight to a nine again, with a very fun groovy riff supported by a heart beat bass line. The synths again fill in the textures, adding colour and variety to the core of the song. The refrain is another top-tier hook and the perfectly placed backing vocals add just another layer of interest. The song finally begins to fade away with a haunting, nursery rhyme-esque vocal melody, over the sound of wind and diminishing acoustic guitars. Eventually, we hear semi-growled whispers joining in to close the record on a deeply unsettling moment. It’s perfect.

Shapes of Midnight is incredible. Heavy metal in its purest form is still fun and exciting when delivered at this level of quality. It doesn’t always need to be the freshest, newest sound to be great. Cult heroes though they may be, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats are still one of the best bands out there. If quality was the only thing that dictated success, they would be massive, but I am so happy that they get to be one of our bands. You know, the bands for people who love heavy metal, who love riffs.