Wizzerd Premiere Saturnalia in Full; Out Tomorrow
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on October 24th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
This Friday, in releasing the seven-track full-length, Saturnalia, Montana-based heavy troupe Wizzerd complete a song cycle they started earlier this year with their fourth LP, Kronia (discussed here). Both are issued through Fuzzorama Records, given the double-billing Solstice, which of course is the uniting factor between the ancient pagan holidays Saturnalia and Kronia; the former is a more well-known celebration of the Roman god Saturn, the latter is an egalitarian high-summer Greek harvest celebration of the grandfather of the gods, Kronos. Both are now marked near the winter and summer solstices, hence Solstice.
The project is easily grandest Wizzerd — the four-piece of guitarist/vocalist Jhalen Salazar, guitarist Jamie Yeats, bassist Layne Matkovich and drummer Sam Moore — have undertaken in the near-decade since they began putting out their first demos. Solstice essentially takes Kronia and Saturnalia — which were recorded at the same time in an apparently fruitful but shifted process as relates to the band’s norm — and makes a 2LP from them. Double-albums are tricky at this point in history, with attention spans trained for instant gratification and a rush toward the new that might make even the 59 minutes of the two records combined — 22 minutes for Kronia, 36 minutes for Saturnalia — seem like too much of a hurdle to get over. Wizzerd‘s ultra-clever workaround? They made two different albums.
As you can read below, all of the material, the 15 songs in their totality, were tracked over the course of eight days, and some of them written during the recording process. That spontaneity unites Kronia and Saturnalia even as the two diverge in terms of persona, with Saturnalia taking the atmosphere of the mostly-acoustic Kronia and pulling it across the fuller-sounding fare of “Snoozer” with its Stoned Jesus-style croon, the 11-minute “Loops” that works itself through enough repetitions to earn the title
and has a darker vibe in its early going like Viaje a 800, or “Sadbot,” which mocks its own sci-fi emotionalism but moves into a wash of resonant tone that reminds of Craneium with more choice vocals over top. The later voices, sitar sounds and acoustic triumph of “Litany” — playing the riff unplugged, but nailing it.
The earlier bit-of-finger in “Tempest,” which is very much the kind of noodling a guitarist might do in the studio while waiting for something else to be tracked, and the part-in-Spanish finale “Visalia,” in addition to “Litany” and the surfy interlude prior “To the Sea,” ensure that there’s plenty of crossover as well, just as pieces like “Hel” and “Dire Wolf” on Kronia were rockers. It’s not all black and white, one or the other, and so much the better. Where Wizzerd could’ve fallen into a trap of releasing the same album twice as so many have who’ve spaced albums between ‘Pt. 1’ and ‘Pt. 2’ — I could drop names here, but I’m not looking to just talk smack about people; it’s a complicated thing and it often doesn’t work — the listener can read a narrative from one to the next as Kronia gives over to Saturnalia, the Clutch-gone-punk “Social Butterfly Effect” closing out the former on a note of high shenanigans to let the serene, Colour Hazed heavy psych that starts “Snoozer” reorient the proceedings.
It does so expertly, and as a whole Solstice sees Wizzerd fostering new creative elements in their sound and growing more patient in their execution. But growing, emphatically and actively, pushing themselves in directions outside of where they’ve been previously, whether it was their 2022 label debut, Space‽: Issue No. 001 (review here), or their more nascent outings. Now complete in its picture with the release of Saturnalia, Solistice proves to be the work of a band finding new ways to manifest their own progression and succeeding. Even before you get to the mellow overarching vibe or the changes in arrangement throughout, the sense of ‘play’ in their playing (a looseness that at times brings to mind the resurgent Mammoth Volume), there’s little to be respected more in music or art more broadly.
Saturnalia streams in its entirety below. Kronia can be found at the bottom of this post. How you take them on might depend on whether you’ve already heard Kronia or not, but however you go, understand that the malleability of the listening experience is also part of the accomplishment here. That the way you hear it might not be the way someone else does reminds us of the individual perspectives with which we view the universe more generally, as well as our place in it.
In any case, please enjoy:
Wizzerd on Solstice:
Solstice is a new kind of project for Wizzerd in many ways. Firstly, it was created in the most spontaneous way we have ever worked, with no concrete plan together as we entered the studio for an eight day marathon of recording direct to one inch tape on a farm in Visalia, CA – with some of the songs being written while in the studio, something else we’ve never done. It is also a new creative endeavor for us in that the influence for many of the songs came from very different directions on each band member’s part, leading to material that is not only all over the place, but also unlike anything Wizzerd has made before. It was almost like a creative reforming in a way. We saw ourselves stepping away from the heavy conceptual tendencies of our previous work while writing these songs.
In this whole sporadic process, we found a common connection in what everyone was bringing to the table; the cyclical nature of life and the human condition, ego-death, which is represented in many things such as night and day or summer and winter. We decided to base the albums around this concept, organizing the music into two parts that showcased the juxtaposition in our writing. Titling the records ‘Kronia’ and ‘Saturnalia’, both named after celebrations in mid-summer and mid-winter, we decided to put the entire project together under one name. Releasing music all year seemed like a good plan considering we had so many songs laid down. With the amazing help from Cody Tarbell at Double Wide Studios on recording, Ben McLeod at BRM Studios for mixing, Mikey Allred at Dark Art Audio for mastering, and Isaac M Passwater for creating a wild illustration representing all these songs, we have made this crazy project come to life.
We present to you: Solstice.
Dive into the mind-blowing realm of WIZZERD, the powerhouse rock band emerging from the wild heart of Kalispell, Montana! Prepare to embark on a sonic odyssey with their expansive new project, ‘Solstice,’ a dual album release featuring ‘Kronia’ and its captivating second part, ‘Saturnalia.’ This ambitious collection takes you on an epic journey, seamlessly blending rock, garage, stoner, and punk influences. WIZZERD weaves a heavy and hypnotic tapestry of sound, with crushing riffs and soaring melodies that are sure to leave you spellbound.
Tracklisting:
1. Snoozer (5:13)
2. Loops (11:15)
3. Tempest (2:22)
4. Sadbot (6:14)
5. To the Sea (2:36)
6. Litany (5:47)
7. Visalia (3:25)
Wizzerd is:
Guitar/Vocals – Jhalen Salazar
Guitar – Jamie Yeats
Drums – Sam Moore
Bass – Layne Matkovich
