Black Wizard Premiere “Vivian Girls” from New Waste
Posted in audiObelisk on January 28th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
Brash Vancouver rockers Black Wizard make their debut on Listenable Records Feb. 12 with their third album, New Waste. It is not to be confused with the old waste.
If there’s any resonant doubt that modern heavy rock is the inheritor of the methods and boozy intentions of classic metal, the dual guitar antics Black Wizard proffer throughout New Waste tracks like “Revival,” “Harsh Time,” “Eliminator,” “The Priest” and “Final Ripper” should lay them thoroughly to rest. While basking in the hazy light of an increasingly prevalent (particularly in the Pacific Northwest) post-Red Fang neo-dude party vibe, the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Adam Grant, guitarist Danny Stokes, bassist Evan Joel and drummer Eugene Parkomenko also pay due homage to Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden‘s gallop and Judas Priest‘s fist-pump-ready groove. Their tones and upbeat style find breadth in the inclusion of organ on the slower “Laughing and Lost” and the Spanish guitar ending of “Vivian Girls,” the plus-sized riffing of “Unnecessary Evil,” but they never go too far from that metallic underpinning, tying the album together as a unified whole even as individual songs stand out across its span.
The band made their self-titled debut in 2010 and followed that with the self-released Young Wisdom LP in 2013, so that they’d have a solid sense of where they want to be aesthetically makes sense — the album is not raw anymore in style than in substance — and an abiding lack of pretense throughout lends even familiar motor-riffing elements a c
ertain charm. I doubt Black Wizard would tell you they’re reinventing the wheel so much as using it to head out to the proverbial highway. After a raging one-two punch in “Revival” and “Harsh Time,” “Laughing and Lost” delves more into classic rock balladry, but “Vivian Girls” blends impulses well en route to the centerpiece “Eliminator,” which rides forth in catchy course while reinforcing the brain-cell destruction and the momentum of the album alike. The subsequent “Unnecessary Evil” cuts the tempo smoothly to set the table for a side B interlude and brief respite in “Waiting For” prior to “The Priest” — guess we know who we’re waiting for — and the latter track picks up where “Harsh Time” left off, it and “Final Ripper” providing a bookend to New Waste as a closing salvo that seems to mirror the opening one.
A central difference, though, is that the final pair of tracks, “The Priest” and “Final Ripper,” are shorter than were “Revival” — the longest song on the album at 6:39 as well as the opener (immediate points) — and “Harsh Time,” and that speaks to the momentum that Black Wizard build up as they run through this material. Listenable is doing a vinyl release as well, but New Waste feels structured as a front-to-back, linear listen too, and as it moves along, it continues to gain in its overarching thrust as well as its scope until the band brings it back around to finish with a tighter incarnation of where they started. Easy to imagine them bleary-eyed, coming to at its conclusion from blackout-induced lost time, but I think there’s more consciousness at work in New Waste than they might want the listener to believe. A record so fluid doesn’t just happen, and whether they’re willing to admit it or not, these guys know what they’re doing.
I have the pleasure today of hosting “Vivian Girls” as a track premiere. Please find it below, along with some more background on the band, and enjoy:
BLACK WIZARD: New Waste Full-Length To See Release Through Listenable Records Next Month
BLACK WIZARD was forged in 2009 by four high school friends. Founding members Adam Grant and Eugene Parkomenko were both working underwhelming construction jobs at the time, passing the days to the sounds of Thin Lizzy, Deep Purple, Witch, and Electric Wizard. Heavily motivated by the thick, weight sounds of bands like Bison and 3 Inches Of Blood monopolizing the scene at the time, “The Wiz” was born. Having followed a true DIY aesthetic, the band has released two full length LPs along with a 7″ single independently and sold over five thousand copies worldwide.
More recently BLACK WIZARD has kept busy touring Canada and the United States and spent last Fall on a month-long trek through Europe. Having shared stages with the likes of Sleep, Uncle Acid, Corrosion Of Conformity, The Shrine, Atomic Bitchwax, Weedeater, Saviours, Anciients and so many more, the band shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. No one is safe.
Black Wizard on Thee Facebooks
