Doom metal bills don’t come bigger than this. Hell, doom gigs don’t come much bigger than this: Acid Bath’s first-ever UK show in a sold out 2,600-capacity Manchester Academy with homegrown heroes Conan and Green Lung – who’ll headline this same venue later this year – in support. It’s massive, it’s exciting and it’s a miracle it’s even happening.
When Acid Bath broke up in 1997 following the tragic death of bassist Audie Pitre, they were lucky if they could play to more than 10 people, guitarist Sammy Duet telling Hammer last year that “While we were together, nobody really gave a shit.” But in their absence, the fondness grew.
Which brings us to Manchester Academy, on the hottest day of the year, watching the hottest reunion in metal right now. The room’s already a furnace when Conan take to the stage, the Liverpudlian brutes issuing some ungodly force that takes New Orleans sludge metal and drags it so far and deep it ends up suffocating under a tonne of lumpen riffs.
Next up are UK doom darlings Green Lung. New tunes Evil In This House and Necropolitan Line have the kind of killer hooks and swaggering riffs that could make them into a real breakout band, while the likes of Mountain Church, Let The Devil In and One For Sorrow are already well-worn anthems.
Before Acid Bath arrive, Black Sabbath’s genre-defining eponymous track plays over the PA, and there doesn’t seem to be a soul in the house who isn’t singing along. It sets a tone, and as the bonus poem tones ominously overhead casting vivid, violent images with just a few lines of apocalyptic poetry. Then all hell breaks loose.
Opening with Tranquilized, the Manchester Academy greets Acid Bath with an orgiastic frenzy as the floor explodes with moshers, dancers and crowdsurfers while cups fly overhead offering sweet – if all too small – relief from the clammy press. This is doom set through a psychedelic prism and enough ecstasy and performance enhancers to get Hugh Heffner bouncing back from the grave.
Even the slow, brutal drag of a song like Bleed Me An Ocean becomes a euphoric sing-along, fans singing along with such fervour you’d think someone was handing out hymn sheets at the door. There’s no corny patter, no insistence on “give us a circle”. The crowd hardly needs encouragement to lose their minds, and the band play with a brooding intensity befitting their status as long-lost legends, vocalist Dax Riggs channelling Jim Morrison via Jim Jones.
At just over an hour, Acid Bath leave the crowd wanting more – inevitably. Some of their biggest ‘hits’ – Scream Of The Butterfly, Cassie Eats Cockroaches – are left out. But the mix of bad-trip psych, end-of-life blues and guttural sludge is just too potent not to love, and when the crowd belt out “Dying felt so goddamn good today” from Paegan Love Song, there’s a sense of overwhelming gratitude that Acid Bath are even back at all, let alone bigger than ever. Doom metal has never felt so utterly euphoric.
Acid Bath support System Of A Down in the UK on July 13 and July 15.
Acid Bath Manchester Academy Setlist June 25 2026
TranquilizedBleed Me An OceanVenus BlueThe Bones Of Baby DollsDead GirlThe Mortician’s FlameNew Death SensationGraveflowerPaegan Love SongThe Blue
