In the hour before dusk, the monumental façade of the Brooklyn Paramount swallowed the second wave of acid-soaked anticipation. The air trembled with anticipation – an old-school metal resurgence was brewing inside. Fans murmured under the velvet glow of marquee lights, clutching sweat-stained tees and beer cans. This wasn’t just another tour stop. Acid Bath was back, here to stake its reemergence in the old capital of noise.

The night opened in shadow, with Pentagram stepping into the haze of the stage lights like living legends. Bobby Liebling, framed in spectral blue, carried the weight of every doom-laden year in his voice. Their riffs rose slow and deliberate, a creeping dog that seeped into the bones of the Paramount. Tracks like “Forever My Queen” and “Sign of the Wolf” rolled out with the patience of a funeral procession, each chord a reminder that doom is not about speed, but gravity. The crowd – silent at first, then swaying – seemed to lean collectively into the darkness, letting the music pull them under.

Then came the rupture. Acid Bath emerged not with spectacle, but with presence – five silhouettes moving into place as if pulled by the same invisible tide. The first chords of “Tranquilized” erupted like the ground splitting open, and in that instant, time bent. The years between their last shows had now evaporated, replaced by the same swamp-soaked menace that made their legend. Dax Riggs stood center stage, his voice curling through the air like smoke, alternating between a mournful croon and a feral scream that could peel the paint off walls.

The set unfolded like a fever dream. “The Bones Of Babydolls” dripped with melancholy, “Dr. Seuss Is Dead” sent the floor into heaving mass of limbs, and “Scream of the Butterfly” felt like a shared hallucination, hundreds of voices murmuring along in unison. Acid Bath’s rhythm section – reborn with fresh blood – gave the songs a hulking backbone, while the guitars slashed through the haze with precision that felt both brutal and strangely elegant.

In the balcony, fans stood frozen, eyes wide, while the pit on the floor transformed into a living organism: colliding, lifting, carrying one another. It wasn’t violence. It was devotion, the kind of chaos that comes only from joy sharpened by ritual. Every song bled into the next until the set felt less like a list of tracks and more like one unbroken séance.

By the end, the Paramount was a cathedral of noise, catharsis, formidable nostalgia. When the final notes decayed into feedback and the band slipped into darkness, no one moved right away. The crowd lingered, as if waking from a dream they weren’t ready to leave. Outside, the humid Brooklyn air clung to the skin, carrying the echo of riffs and screams into the summer night.

Pentagram had laid the foundation; a deep, resonate hum of doom. Acid Bath built upon it with a feral, luminous storm. Together, they turned one Friday night into a living testament: heavy music never dies; it waits, patient and hungry, for nights like this to devour the world whole.