For That Delicious Vice, their fifth studio full-length of their nineteen-year recording career (and their first in eight years), Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds have been reduced to a trio, featuring Kid Congo Powers (guitar, vocals), Mark Cisneros (guitar, bass) and Ron Miller (drums, percussion, vocals). It’s a record with two faces, with primal rock ‘n’ roll drenched in psychedelic blues on side A, and more subdued, atmospheric tunes on the B-side. The first five songs roll along a straight road under a bright sun through the desert, starting with the cinematic instrumental East Of East and a duet with Alice Bag in the exciting lead single Wicked World. The last five songs reach more dense territory as night falls, slowing down the tempo and leaving room for exotic influences. Be sure to listen to the cowbell-thumping Latinate rhythms and the distorted guitar groans in the amazing acid/cumbia title track (the title is translated into Spanish as Ese Vicio Delicioso), a highlight in the band’s career. It’s followed by a few ballads, closing with extended soundscape Murder Of Sunrise (almost eighteen minutes long), which Kid claims is meant to be his ‘Barry White song’. Somehow it all works in this tasteful trip.
That Delicious Vice, recorded & mixed by Jim Waters, is out now on CD and vinyl LP through In The Red Records.
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