Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
One of the most popular bands to emerge from the occult stoner doom scene is the United Kingdom‘s Electric Wizard. Today, fanatics everywhere may come and rejoice for the announcement that follows.
The band will soon release their new studio album, titled ‘Wizard Bloody Wizard‘, and pre-orders for it are active now on Spinefarm Records at this location.
We are excited to bring you the album artwork and tracklist today, along with some commentary about it from the band. The LP’s stunning all-analog recording was produced by the band’s own Jus Oborn and Liz Buckingham (guitars) in their own Satyr IX Recording Studio. The album sleeve and cover art have also been conceived by the band and echoes again their love of the macabre, evil, and menacing perversity.
Check out the video stream of the new song “See You In Hell” below. Says Electric Wizard‘s Jus Oborn:
“Right away we knew this was it… the new direction we should go in. Real heavy music… really basic heavy rock, blues based, but brutal. I think a lot of modern heavy music has disappeared up its own arse… it’s too pretentious and technical. We wanted to get back to that primal sound… over amplified blues… Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Zeppelin. They took that music and then turned it up… so we thought let’s do the blues in our style. Heavy, heavy super fuckin’ blues, total snail-paced funeral boogie for this 21st century hell. I guess it’s meant to be hopeless, but it’s also defiant and unbroken.“
“Y’know, a lot of bad shit has happened to us, but through it all was the music. We still dig loud, heavy music and the album is not really depressed or angry, it’s arrogant and rebellious. I still believe in rock and roll and I still believe in killing it on stage and mentally destroying an audience.”
Tracklist:
See You In Hell
Necromania
Hear The Sirens Scream
The Reaper
Wicked Caresses
Mourning Of The Magicians
The 43 minute ‘Wizard Bloody Wizard‘ is another eerily depraved offering, inspired by vintage horror/ exploitation movies and copious anti-social deviancy. The band reassures its fans that this record, much like its predecessors, contains “hymns to death, drugs, sex and violence“. Sounds good!
“Sex and violence are our basest instincts. I guess we think that engaging the brain and guts on this most basic, primal level is the fastest way to grab people’s emotions… it’s ‘shock’ tactics, but the world is so fuckin’ brainwashed or bored that they need to be ‘woken up’. The ‘man’ is slowly neutering and killing us with technology and lies… it’s time to fight back.“
“We’ve been worn out by the modern scene, it’s all about styles and genre. We just wanna make solid heavy music… no rules. We didn’t set out to record a style or product. We set out to record what we wanted to hear. I want people to know it’s Electric Wizard from the first second, but also to know we are gonna take them on a trip. Heavy doesn’t just mean tone and bottom end… I think people have become too obsessed by FX and boutique amps. It’s more about playing style, attitude and song-writing… y’know, a lot of our songs have been interpreted as acoustic numbers by various people and they are still heavy and ominous sounding… you can’t dilute true darkness.“
Indeed you cannot. Electric Wizard, circa 2017, is a band revitalized by the presence of new blood within its veins. Joining Jus and Liz in the band and on this new record are bassist Clayton Burgess and drummer Simon Poole. Further info and details, including any possible label distro or release date, etc, will be brought to you the moment it is available.
Outstanding review of Eletric Wizard haven’t had the time to read and of the other material as of yet but I shall return
Thank You
John