Caustic Resin
The Medicine Is All Gone [Reissue]
(Scavenger Cult)
There are few lines that are indeed straight. Everything jags a few degrees here or there from what can be described as true.
Caustic Resin’s third studio recording, The Medicine Is All Gone is one of those albums, a piece of music that evokes a singular era, but by virtue of that definitive quality, achieves a sort of ragged timelessness. One glance off of its hazy bow, and it’s pretty plain to see, this is a bridge between the slurry grunge guitar rock of the late 1990’s and the trend of melodic, heavy music that has exploded today.
Boise is a long way from everywhere. But in the middle to late ’90s, on the backs of Built To Spill’s seemingly unlikely rise to global prominence, the little Idaho city found itself suddenly more integrated into the indie-rock web of influence. Caustic Resin, perhaps because of the overlapping member Brett Neslon, have always been closely associated with Built To Spill and took quite some time, their first couple of records to be exact, to define themselves. The Medicine is All Gone serves as their first, most striking counter to the affiliation of Doug Martsch’s original band.
It’s worth noting right off in an assessment of The Medicine Is All Gone that Brett Nelson, singer and guitar maestro of Caustic Resin, has since moved on to work with Dylan Carlson and Earth, one of the ground breakers in high concept, heavy music. Nelson’s guitar work at the helm of Caustic Resin is shows some of that gloomy orientation, full of down tempo churns like on “Hate In Your…” and “Once And Only” the latter of which feels like the death wail of the darkest, bleakest, Crazy Horse song you’ve ever heard. Often the band draws comparisons to Syd Barret era Pink Floyd for their indulgent, psychedelic experimentation, a dreamy edge that comes through on “Dripping” but where they foretell the present day is that murkiness, that fingers in the dirt swamp rock which is redolent on “Mysteries Of…”. Even though the album’s overall tone is best described as dour, vocal wails and lyrical content unpleasant, songwriting spun downward, it bounces a bit on the frenetic “Man From Michigan” which features the refrain “I’ll come running to you/baby if you want me to”. For a moment, Caustic Resin calls straight out of the 50’s rock radio canon, an unexpected but more than welcome, mid-record turn. Whether Nelson meant to serve as burning spearhead to a movement, or simply get one monkey off of his back or another, what the band hatched back in Boise in their halcyon days has stood the test of time.
In the end, The Medicine Is All Gone is one amazing record. It is a necessary piece of music that, in hindsight, is as improbable as it is an invigorating slice of the inexact moment when psychedelic rock and heavy metal fused to their mutual betterment. The band was battered, in and out of legal troubles, but they were also clearly ready to press their fist in some primordial clay. Nelson ends his opus with “Enough” the longest, most space rock and blues infused jam on the record, maybe in the band’s six-album discography. “Enough” is the last gasp in crucial torch pass. It parts the bong smoke and amps up the stakes while drawing a crooked line to thicker, heavier vistas to come.
Purchase The Medicine Is All Gone [Reissue] here.
