Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

[schema type=”review” name=”Electric Wizard – Wizard Bloody Wizard” description=”Label: Spinefarm Records” author=”Basak Günel” pubdate=”2017-11-17″ ]

The mighty Electric Wizard is back…..

The legendary psychedelic doom band has kept us waiting ever since the last album “Time To Die” was released 3 years ago. The silence has been broken and they are finally back with the latest album “Wizard Bloody Wizard” (Black Sabbath, anyone?) which is out this week!

As a relatively new fan, I got to know the band with the amazing Dopethrone album in the last years so when I think about Electric Wizard, I think about atmosphere, doom and long songs. “Wizard Bloody Wizard” is, however, quite the opposite. Compared to the EW sound I know, the overall sound and style in this album is quite upbeat, which was quite obvious from the first single and also the first song of the album “See You In Hell”. The combination of psychedelia and stoner doom is present but this time we see a modern and fresh EW without all that atmosphere… just pure rock’n’roll and the classic EW sound that all of us fans know and enjoy. One thing is for sure; the essence of the band is there and even if the sound is different, it shows us how the band keeps on going by maintaining that perfect style that we all love and adore.

One thing I always liked in with this band is the concept and the lyrics. Concepts like negativity, nihilism and the misanthropy form the highlights of this record, which got me hooked from the beginning. If one sentence would describe the album, it would probably be “Goodbye, farewell… I’ll see you in hell” or something like “All hope is lost…. your dreams will die”. These concepts create a nice contrast with the upbeat modern sound and it will probably be the highlight of many listeners. The ending of the album also impressed me; “Mourning of the Magicians” is probably the “doomiest” song in the record and a perfect ending for WBW. So these contrasts will be quite a nice surprise for the listeners.

One thing I would criticize would be maybe that the band could have gotten more creative as I found some songs a bit too repetitive for a legendary band like EW. I don’t know if this was because the clock was ticking or they ran out of ideas but as any fan, I have high expectations when it comes to this band. In in this case, it’s not the modern sound or their “back to the basics” style but the structure in the songs that got me a bit disappointed… Repetition or “dull-ness” is something that is the buzzkiller; this is not present in all of the songs but this kind-of killed the overall perfection.

WBW is an interesting record that may not please every EW fan out there… but hey, you can’t please everyone and that is what this album is all about. Regardless of some flaws, WBW is definitely one of my favorites of 2017. It’s just up to the EW fan to decide which side of the band’s sound they like more… It may not be your favorite EW record but it’s definitely worth spinning and adding it to your perfect collection!