''Paegan Terrorism Tactics'' is the second and final studio album by American
heavy metal band
Acid Bath
Acid Bath was an American sludge metal band from Houma, Louisiana, active from 1991 to 1997. Acid Bath combined doom metal roots with influences from hardcore punk, death metal, gothic rock, and blues to create the band's unique sound. Th ...
. It is the band's last album before their disbanding in 1997 due to the death of bassist Audie Pitre.
The album was written while the band was touring. The album and first track spell "paegan" with an added "e" to resemble
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
. The album's cover is a painting by
Dr. Jack Kevorkian
Murad Jacob "Jack" Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide, embodied in his quote, "Dying is not ...
.
Overview
The lyrics on this album are poetic and further showcase
Dax Riggs
Dax David Riggs (born October 15, 1973) is an American musician, best known for fronting the sludge metal band Acid Bath in the 1990s. He has been a part of many projects since then, including Agents of Oblivion and Deadboy & the Elephantmen ...
's dark sense of humor. "Paegan Love Song", according to Riggs, makes references to when the band was visiting a beach in Florida, where some people offered the band a
deliriant
Deliriants are a subclass of hallucinogen. The term was coined in the early 1980s to distinguish these drugs from psychedelics and dissociatives such as LSD and ketamine, respectively, due to their primary effect of causing delirium, as opposed t ...
called
Angel's Trumpets. Riggs said the
trip
Trip may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Trip (''Pokémon''), a ''Pokémon'' character
* Trip (Power Rangers), in the American television series ''Time Force Power Rangers''
* Trip, in the 2013 film ''Metallica Through th ...
lasted for days, and the lines "dying felt so goddamn good today" refer to the band members waking up delirious on these flowers. "Eating dead flowers bleeding in a strange daze" among other lines in the song reference the experience of waking up on the beach with this seemingly strange
intoxicated state. On the
''Double Live Bootleg!'' DVD (2002) the band introduces the song by saying "Rock 'N' Roll makes the world go 'round, drinking fucking beer and smoking pot! This is Paegan Love Song." "Graveflower" has a guitar solo that heavily employs a
drone
Drone most commonly refers to:
* Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg
* Unmanned aerial vehicle
* Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft
* Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone
Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to:
...
. "13 Fingers" and "New Corpse" experiment with
black metal
Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...
musicianship. Sammy Duet co-wrote the lyrics for "Diäb Soulé" and "New Corpse". "Diäb Soulé" is
Cajun French
Louisiana French ( frc, français de la Louisiane; lou, françé la lwizyàn) is an umbrella term for the dialects and varieties of the French language spoken traditionally by French Louisianians in colonial Lower Louisiana. As of today Louis ...
for the "drunken devil". The liner notes present Sammy Duet as Sammy "Pierre" Duet, which is a nickname Riggs gave him because a historical witch was named Sammy Pierre Duet. The poem/hidden track "Ode of the Paegan" is sometimes cited or referred to as "The Beautiful Downgrade" and appear as such in Riggs's poetry books.
[Riggs, Dax]
Dax Riggs The Beautiful Downgrade
Creative-Poems.com. User:Agents of Oblivion (Dax Riggs). The
hidden track
In the field of recorded music, a hidden track (sometimes called a ghost track, secret track or unlisted track) is a song or a piece of audio that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, LP record, or other recorded medium, in such a way as t ...
along with the track "Old Skin" make up the two
spoken word
Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...
poems on the album. While in Mexico, the band took a reverse negative photo of the head of a decapitated animal and originally intended on using that as the album cover.
[Sammy Duet in the Media](_blank)
YouTube.com. User:thelostcollection (Dax Riggs).[Alternative Cover of Paegan Terrorism Tactics](_blank)
PhotoBucket.com. They later decided on Kevorkian's artwork. The initial artwork can be found on various sites on the internet.
Track listing
Track 1 is listed in the
liner notes
Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes.
Origin
Liner notes are desce ...
as "Pagan Love Song".
The hidden track is sometimes mislabeled as "Ode of the Paegan".
Personnel
Acid Bath
*
Dax Riggs
Dax David Riggs (born October 15, 1973) is an American musician, best known for fronting the sludge metal band Acid Bath in the 1990s. He has been a part of many projects since then, including Agents of Oblivion and Deadboy & the Elephantmen ...
– lead vocals
*Mike Sanchez – guitar
*Sammy "Pierre" Duet – backing vocals, guitar
*Audie Pitre – backing vocals, bass
*Jimmy Kyle – drums, percussion, photography
Production
*Keith Falgout – production, engineer, mixer
*Matt "Heavy" Akin – assistant engineer
*Spice –
samples, intern
*Chris Robinson – intern
*John "Feedback" Gilmore – intern
References
{{Authority control
1996 albums
Dax Riggs albums
Acid Bath albums
Gothic metal albums
Punk rock albums by American artists
Southern rock albums