Here's another rarity from the depths of my analog archives - industrial metal band Acumen Nation recorded live in support of the More Human Heart album in 1997. Singer/guitarist Jason Novak was in town on March 25 opening for KMFDM at First Avenue with his new band Czar.
Acumen Nation has a confounding legacy with recorded output all over the map in terms of style. Most of their work is grounded in hard, heavy guitars, best exemplified on their incredible second album, Territory=Universe (1996). I discovered the band (then known as Acumen) back in 1996 supporting Gravity Kills at The Bottleneck in Lawrence, Kansas. They completely blew away Gravity Kills (one of the lamest live bands) and I was hooked. I conducted a lengthy interview with Jason around this time, and even then his wide range of musical interests was apparent.
The show here was soon after the release of More Human Heart, and was part of a tour with industrial metal heavyweights Skrew and 20 Deadflowerchildren, an awesome rap/nü-metal band from Detroit that later moved to Orange County, California but sadly never broke out. A major snowstorm hit the Kansas City area on the day of this show, so despite it being free, I was literally the only person there aside from the bands and their crews. The audio here was taken from a digital transfer of the original VHS-C video recording of the show, and sounds far better than the band's own live album from 2004 (Re:Live). Perhaps because of the lack of an audience, the band was a bit loose and having fun on stage. One funny moment is in "Margasuch" when Jason repeats during a break, "Too many bands sound like Korn", bringing it from a whisper to a raging scream in imitation of the band. The set was curious in that not much was played from More Human Heart, and there are a couple songs I've never been able to identify after all these years. Leave a comment if you can help me out! I don't recognize track 7 and the song following "Punkass" in track 8.
The download link is here. As always, please share, but share the link
to this post rather than the direct Mediafire link. Enjoy!
Acumen Nation
Live Human Heart
December 8, 1997
Kansas City, MO, Grand Emporium
mp3@192 kbps, 51 MB zip file (artwork
included)
2. Noarms Nolegs (4:10)
3. Gun Lover (4:02)
4. Margasuch (2:39)
5. Bleed For You (5:33)
6. Queener (7:39)
7. ?? (3:25)
8. Punkass/?? (4:29)
Total time: 37:54
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