Posted in Bootleg Theater on November 11th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
We are now past the release date of what’s purported to be the final Old Man Wizard album, Kill Your Servants Quietly (review here). It came out last week. I’ve said a fair amount about it already, and will say more if I can manage to nail down a time to interview guitarist/vocalist Francis Roberts — the logistics issues being mine, not his; West Coast is a real challenge for me these days amid regularly-scheduled afternoon parenting clusterfucks — but so far as I know, nothing I’ve said to this point has involved sacrilegious hot dog eating contests or anybody taking a guitar solo naked except for a bit of ketchup, mustard and the strategically-placed instrument itself. I guess in that regard it’s a good thing the video for “I Prayed” came along.
I suppose the clip, directed by Reece Miller, is NSFW, unless you happen to work in an environment cool with partial-nudity and sacrilege — and if so, congratulations on that job — but its oddness, stonefaced tongue-in-cheek approach suits the lyrical cynicism well, and it’s one of several cuts on Kill Your Servants Quietly that deals directly with the topic of religion. The line “God is not your friend” here foreshadows a later title on the record to the contrary, “God is Your Friend.” With the album’s title-track in between “I Prayed” and “God is Your Friend,” and the lyric there, “Your love of god is a narcissistic fraud,” questions of friendship would seem to answer themselves one way or the other between the various speakers in each piece.
In any case, the level of absurdity here is enough to remind me of The State, and I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it as a compliment, and the song rules, so until I can get that interview done, here’s another excuse for me to post about a good record.
Enjoy:
Old Man Wizard, “I Prayed” official video
Frontman Francis Roberts comments:
“Reece (the guy who made the video) and I have worked together on countless projects and this came out of one of many absurd brainstorming sessions we’ve had. We were originally going to crucify me on a tow truck but couldn’t find one to rent, and ended up having a hilarious conversation about other things that would be grotesque parodies of religious images. That led to the idea of me playing Jesus Christ: Hot Dog Eating Contest Champion, with a classic white robe covered in sponsorships from condiment brands, but we went with the creepy priest look since I didn’t have time to grow my hair and beard back out. This is where we ended up!”
Old Man Wizard is: Francis Roberts – Lead Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Samplers Andre Beller – Background Vocals, Bass Guitar, Violin Kris Calabio – Background Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Old Man Wizard, “Kill Your Servants” official video
Posted in audiObelisk on October 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Old Man Wizard release their final album on Nov. 5. It’s not every band that go into their last release knowing they’re done, and the San Diego three-piece approach Kill Your Servants Quietly (review here) with a due sense of purpose in the songs, pushing outward from their foundations in progressive heavy rock to incorporate elements of classic pop, disco, musical theatre, and more.
Following up on 2018’s Blame it All on Sorcery (discussed here) and 2013’s Unfavorable (review here), the 10-track swan song for an undervalued group finds them going out on their most realized moment, and if they’re really done — because everybody knows that sometimes a band isn’t when they might initially think they are — they ride into oblivion on top of their proverbial game.
I reviewed the record in August. That’s stupid-early on my part for a November release. And there was a track premiere with that too. And I’m in the process of setting up an interview with guitarist/vocalist/synthesist Francis Roberts to talk about ending the band and future plans and so on.
Accordingly, I’ll spare you any more diatribe, but from that, please take that I consider the work to be of marked achievement in style and the substance of its craft. In Kill Your Servants Quietly‘s awareness of and engagement with pop, there’s a strong structural underpinning to their melodies that even in the three-minute “Parasite” — premiering below — I think comes through without question. It’s true throughout the record that the songs are thoughtful and three-dimensionally conceived without being entirely overdone.
So yeah, this is the second track premiere I’ve done for Kill Your Servants Quietly. If they offered me a third, I’d probably do that too. Madness.
Enjoy:
Francis Roberts on “Parasite”:
I love Carly Simon. “You’re So Vain” isn’t even close to my favorite song of hers (“Nobody Does It Better” wins that prize), but the premise behind the song is genius; It’s essentially a diss track that doesn’t give its target the validation of having a song written for them. I started writing “Parasite” more than ten years ago and stopped because I didn’t feel like the person I was writing it about deserved a song, and reading that story about Carly Simon inspired me to redo it without making it about anyone in particular.
Musically, we ended up doing going for sort of a surf-punk vibe. I think this song was the hardest to get a good take on; That instrumental break is really hard, and it’s one of the songs we hadn’t tested out at a show before recording, so we had less practice on it. If you like it, send it to someone you hate!
Old Man Wizard is: Francis Roberts – Lead Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Samplers Andre Beller – Background Vocals, Bass Guitar, Violin Kris Calabio – Background Vocals, Drums, Percussion
Old Man Wizard, “Kill Your Servants” official video
[Click play above to stream ‘God is Your Friend’ from Old Man Wizard’s Kill Your Servants Quietly. Album is available for preorder here.]
Francis Roberts on “God is Your Friend”:
This song went through a ton of iterations before I settled on the version you’re hearing today. It was almost an acoustic song! I’m glad we switched directions and ended up with whatever the doom metal dance party that’s on the album is. Here are some fun facts about it:
-This song has my favorite guitar “sound effect” just before the second chorus.
-I think this song might have more chord changes than anything else we’ve released.
-The band is tracked live.
-The bass guitar is doubled with a minimoog throughout most of the song.
-The third verse was originally going to have clean “funk” guitar but the tone we recorded with ended up reminding me of early Ozzy tracks and I really liked it so we kept it.
San Diego prog-heavy, heavy prog — or some other combination of those words and probably others — Old Man Wizard will self-release their third and reportedly final full-length, Kill Your Servants Quietly, on Nov. 5. With 100 copies pressed each on LP (due early next year) and CD and 60 tapes, it would be a quiet drawdown to the three-piece’s near-decade together but for the quality of the work itself, which divides into 10 tracks each with a purpose and personality of its own that together create the whole-album impression of a band grown comfortable in a variety of sonic contexts and able to draw together seemingly disparate moods, tempos and progressions with an overarching smoothness of production and performance. Recorded mostly live with just “Your Life (As a Problem)” and “Live Forever” — closers for sides A and B, respectively — made during pandemic isolation, Kill Your Servants Quietly answers 2018’s Blame it All on Sorcery (discussed here) and 2013’s Unfavorable (review here) with a fitting does-what-it-wants realization of who Old Man Wizard are and will have been as a group.
Guitarist, lead vocalist, synthesist, producer and principal songwriter Francis Roberts (also of King Gorm and solo work) remains distinctive in voice and production style, and Kill Your Servants Quietly is defined in no small part by the lush melodies across its 46-minute span, which breaks indeed into two halves neatly, its first five tracks shifting back and forth between slower and faster tempos, beginning with the six-minute gradual build of “I Prayed.” Bassist Andre Beller (also violin), drummer Kris Calabio, as well as Mark Calabio, Drew Peters and Reece Miller provide backing vocals at various points throughout. On theme, “I Prayed” begins a four-song anti-religious — catholic-specific with a mention of tithing along the way — lyrical screed defined by lines like, “Prayed instead of thinking” from that song, “Your love of god is a narcissistic fraud” from the hook of the subsequent semi-title track “Kill Your Servants,” the fetish-hued “Father, please save me!/Enslave me and punish me!” from “God is Your Friend” (premiering above) and “When you look at death’s face/Hope you appreciate/The punishment that you face/Knowing that god is fake” from “I Wanna Know” before “Your Life (As a Problem)” caps with the narrative of hearing a voice that says, “I don’t see your life as a problem/I don’t think it matters either way.”
This could be framed as anything from a coming-out story to being Jewish or atheist, politically left-wing or any number of other things — there’s so much hate to go around — but the rest of Kill Your Servants Quietly moves forward from there, and “Today,” which opens side B, feels purposefully chosen for its sense of freedom from the prior existential drag, replacing the lumber of “God is Your Friend,” the galloping offset of “Kill Your Servants,” and the hairpin-turn chug of “I Wanna Know” with a willfully danceable and thoughtfully executed pop. Heavy rock of the disco era is a tough pull, but Old Man Wizard strut out a bassline under a howling guitar and by the time the hi-hat and the layer of cleaner-toned strummy guitar come in to hammer the point home, there’s no question what they’re up to as a group. Various keys and synth effects add to the build late, but the way elements are added one by one emphasizes the push toward pop even if the catchy payoff hook doesn’t — it does — and they wind their way out on a guitar solo to let the quick drums and harder fuzz, peppered with a quick “ough” to bring back a rock mindset, as if to say ‘enough of that feeling alright about yourself stuff; here’s a song about dying alone in the snow.’
So it goes. “Soldier’s Winter,” self-contained in its storyline isn’t necessarily the heaviest song on Kill Your Servants Quietly, with “God is Your Friend” and “I Wanna Know” earlier on, but the turn to tonal thickness takes the place of some of side A’s tempo trades and presents a new aspect for where the second half of the record goes. The blatant social commentary of “Parasite” is of its era without naming names and feels cathartic while remaining straight-ahead in structure. It is the shortest inclusion at just over three minutes but fits a well-plotted solo and backing spoken layers into that time, a moment of relative intensity that makes its point and gets out before “Falling Star” and “Live Forever” wrap, the former the longest song at 6:28 positioned well as the most progressive and almost exploratory of the proceedings, an extended solo section giving way to a linear build in the middle third that moves back to the verse in the last minute, feeling like it holds off just long enough to make the listener wonder if they’ll get there before they do. That return and the subsequent last chorus crash out, leaving “Live Forever” to stand on its own in a final underscoring of intent.
Though it moves into roll-credits cinematics instrumentally and finds Roberts in a single layer belting out the lyrics, “And I missed out on the whole world according to you/But that’s okay/I’m not ashamed to be myself,” the closer begins and ends folkish in its vocals, with a phrasing that (and this isn’t a dig at all) reminds of “Rainbow Connection” from 1979’s The Muppet Movie, the arrangement behind bringing up synthesizer and strings or string sounds to swell before a return repetition of the quoted lines and those that wrap, one last stir before the and album fade out together. The elements that have made Old Man Wizard a standout band during their tenure are all present throughout Kill Your Servants Quietly. Their engaging of different eras of heavy rock and metal of the ’70s and ’80s. Considered, progressive and unflinching melody and rhythm. The style that finds inevitable comparison points in the likes of Opeth and Ghost while managing to be directly relatable to neither. These are all in the tracks, and more besides, with the interwoven layers of keys and guitar and vocals throughout, but it’s ultimately the less tangible feeling of completeness, the sheer resolution of it, that makes Kill Your Servants Quietly so satisfying. If indeed it’s Old Man Wizard‘s last offering, they go out with their best.
Old Man Wizard, “Kill Your Servants” official video
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 22nd, 2021 by JJ Koczan
With the record on for the first time as I write this, I’m kind of doing the stages of grief with Old Man Wizard‘s Kill Your Servants Quietly. Nah, it won’t really be their last album. Well fuck that. Maybe just one more after this. It’s a bummer they’re done. And maybe they really are.
Set to release Nov. 5, Kill Your Servants Quietly follows 2018’s Blame it All on Sorcery (discussed here) and 2013’s Unfavorable (review here) and will indeed reportedly be the final long-player from the San Diego progressive rock trio. And yeah, Francis Roberts has plenty of other stuff going, between King Gorm and making synth soundtracks to videogames both real and imagined, but to find Old Man Wizard still pushing their sound forward in the disco-rocking “Today” after the acoustic-led “Your Life,” lush melody pervading all the while to tie it together just emphasizes how individual what they did was and, at least until November, is. Back to being bummed I go.
You’ll note the artwork here in conversation with Unfavorable. Valin Mattheis also did the second record, though it was in a different style.
Album info came down the PR wire:
Old Man Wizard – Kill Your Servants Quietly – Nov. 5, 2021
Kill Your Servants Quietly is the third and final studio album from Progressive Heavy Rock outfit Old Man Wizard. It follows the release of two full-length LPs: Unfavorable (2013) and Blame It All On Sorcery (2018).
Guitarist/Vocalist Francis Roberts writes: “This is my favorite album I’ve ever made. I love the songs I wrote for it, I loved working on it, and I’m really looking forward to sharing it with everyone. The plan was to record it in a very old school way: guitar/bass/drums live in the same room together with only eight inputs for the band, edited and mixed down to backing tracks, and adding vocals and other stuff as overlays. We got through the live recording part with eight of the songs just before the pandemic hit, so we had to track vocals, overlays, and two of the songs (“Live Forever” and “Your Life”) remotely. All three of us have decent home recording abilities, so I think it turned out sounding really cool. I hope you love it as much as I loved making it.”
Kill Your Servants Quietly escorts you on a fantasy-fuelled journey with a mixture of high-energy tracks and emotional performances. The theatrical thunder and soaring melodies of “I Prayed” opens the album with dramatic effect. The overdriven guitar of the title track provides a heavy grounding to the soaring vocals and harmonies. With lyrics balancing on the line between fantasy and reality, the narrative explores dark ideas whilst aptly suiting the musical arrangement.
From the eerily dark instrumentation and lyrics of “God Is Your Friend” to the serene “Your Life” and dynamic “Live Forever”, Kill Your Servants Quietly is an excellently crafted album. Old Man Wizard have cultivated a distinctive sound that delivers epic drama and delight with every track.
Album Credits: Music and Lyrics by Francis Roberts Produced by Francis Roberts Artwork by Valin Mattheis Additional vocals by Mark Calabio, Drew Peters, Reece Miller Voiceover by Bill Roper
Tracklisting: 01 I Prayed 02 Kill Your Servants 03 God Is Your Friend 04 I Wanna Know 05 Your Life 06 Today 07 Soldier’s Winter 08 Parasite 09 Falling Star 10 Live Forever
Old Man Wizard is: Francis Roberts – Lead Vocals, Guitar, Synth, Samplers Andre Beller – Background Vocals, Bass Guitar, Violin Kris Calabio – Background Vocals, Drums, Percussion
