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Electric Wizard Announce Nov. East Coast Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on September 11th, 2019 by JJ Koczan

Two years removed from their latest album, 2017’s Wizard Bloody Wizard (review here), and just a month removed from their headlining slot at Psycho Las Vegas, UK doom magnates Electric Wizard will do a select round of dates along the US Eastern Seaboard, and, well, that’s just nifty. It’ll be right before Thanksgiving, which is as appropriate a time as I can think of to hear the riff from “Funeralopolis,” and they’re playing some pretty decent-sized venues. It’s been a couple years since they were in this part of the world, but they’ve been touring in drips and drabs in various regions, so it was a matter of time before they got back. Good doom happens slowly.

Fresh off the PR wire:

electric wizard

ELECTRIC WIZARD ANNOUNCE EAST COAST TOUR DATES THIS NOVEMBER

England’s paramount doom act returns to U.S. soil once again…

Advancing their American assault, British doom legends Electric Wizard are one again returning to the United States. This November, Electric Wizard will level everything in their path and perform in St. Petersburg, FL, Atlanta, GA, Silver Spring, MD, Brooklyn, NY, Philadelphia, PA and Worcester, MA. The tour follows last month’s praiseworthy appearance at Las Vegas’ Psycho Festival where Electric Wizard shook the foundation of the Mandalay Bay Events Center. Soon, residents along the Eastern seaboard will have their chance to experience Electric Wizard’s massively monolithic wall of sound with a set list that traverses the group’s 9 album, 25-year-long legacy.

Electric Wizard continue to support their acclaimed 2017 album Wizard Bloody Wizard. Since its release, the band has played select shows in the United States and overseas including high profile appearances at the likes of London’s iconic Shepard’s Bush Empire, Up In Smoke (Switzerland), Deathfest (Netherlands), and more. Electric Wizard is commonly (and rightfully) referred to as “the heaviest band in the world,” with at least three of their nine LP’s widely recognized as genre benchmarks and heavy metal classics: 1996’s Come My Fanatics…, 2000’s Dopethrone and 2007’s Witchcult Today. Electric Wizard remain an undeniable influence over modern doom metal and how it is perceived today.

Tour dates and venues are detailed below — these shows are not to miss. More news from Electric Wizard to surface soon.

ELECTRIC WIZARD, ON TOUR w/ MIDNIGHT:
November 15 St. Petersburg, FL @ Janus Landing
November 16 Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle
November 18 Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore
November 19 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
November 20 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
November 22 Worcester, MA @ The Palladium

Artist photo by: Ester Segarra

http://electricwizard.merchnow.com/
https://www.facebook.com/electricwizarddorsetdoom/
https://www.facebook.com/spinefarm/
http://www.spinefarmrecords.com/
https://open.spotify.com/track/5gG15aEI4zv1hohsjFBhtD

Electric Wizard, Live at Psycho Las Vegas 2019

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Electric Wizard, Wizard Bloody Wizard: This Dying World

Posted in Reviews on November 2nd, 2017 by JJ Koczan

Electric Wizard Wizard Bloody Wizard

And so the scumbag overlords return to once more claim their position at the top of the heap they’ve made. Electric Wizard are inarguably one of the most influential doom bands of their generation, with nearly 30 years of history going back to guitarist/vocalist Jus Oborn‘s founding of Lord of Putrefaction in 1988, which begat Thy Grief Eternal circa 1991 before taking shape as Electric Wizard ahead of the band’s 1995 self-titled debut. In the 22 years since that record hit, much has changed, of course, but with their ninth long-player, Wizard Bloody Wizard — licensed to Spinefarm Records through the band’s own Witchfinder Records imprint — the band reaffirms much of what has led to their longevity in terms of style and songwriting.

In some ways, the Dorset, UK-based outfit have existed in their own shadow since marking something of a comeback with 2007’s landmark Witchcult Today (discussed here), and subsequent LPs, Black Masses (review here) in 2010 and Time to Die (review here) in 2014, found the group working to develop ideas and themes largely along similar lines, and largely succeeding, but as Oborn, guitarist Liz Buckingham, bassist Clayton Burgess (also Satan’s Satyrs) and drummer Simon Poole step into the willfully-crafted muck of Wizard Bloody Wizard‘s six-track/42-minute span, they bring something of a pivot toward a rawer, less directly cultish sound. The change is due if not overdue and has been part of the discussion for as long as the band has been talking about the proverbial “next album,” but to have it manifest here in songs like “Necromania” and “Wicked Caresses” underscores the band’s tie between holding fast to the elements that have worked in their favor since classic outings like 1997’s Come My Fanatics… and 2000’s Dopethrone (discussed here) and attempting to move forward into a pivot in style if not an actual leap.

The trick to Electric Wizard is and has been for at least the last decade that they sound like the human embodiment of fuckall. One can put on an Electric Wizard track like the chugging, feedback-laden “See You in Hell,” hear Oborn‘s addled drawl, the rawness of tone and the lumbering progression, and hear a signature attitude on the part of the band that seems to advocate checking out of life by following its example at having already long since done so. This has made the band forerunners in witch doom, wizard doom, cult doom, garage doom — whatever you want to call it — but as a feat of craft it’s all the more impressive when one engages the details.

To wit, if they actually didn’t give a crap, Wizard Bloody Wizard wouldn’t be nearly as impeccably mixed as it is, promoting depth as well as a touch of atmosphere while still fostering barebones tonality and an overarching lack of flourish in all tracks save perhaps for the three-minute horror-themed drifter interlude “The Reaper.” Poole‘s drums wouldn’t come through as clearly and crisply as they do if they were actually lazily tracked, and frankly, songs like “Necromania,” “Hear the Sirens Scream” and “Wicked Caresses” wouldn’t be nearly as catchy as they are while also feeding into a larger, full-LP flow that presents “See You in Hell,” “Necromania” and “Hear the Sirens Scream” as a one-two-three salvo of hooks on side A while sleeking deeper into the VHS-grit mire on side B with “The Reaper” before returning to solid ground on “Wicked Caresses” before letting consciousness fade at last on 11-minute closer “Mourning of the Magicians.” None of this is haphazard, whatever superficial impressions the band might make — and want to make — to the contrary.

electric wizard

On their own level, Electric Wizard are absolute professionals — arguably all the more so here since they’re recording themselves and releasing in part through their own label — and the maturity of their approach comes through this material without sacrificing its dark vitality or the core attitude necessary to carry it. Oh yeah, a part sounds sloppy? It’s supposed to. That’s the idea. The filthier, the nastier Electric Wizard are able to come across, the more they’ve succeeded in realizing one of their most essential tenets. And among the generation of imitators they’ve spawned, almost no one has been able to do the same thing as well as they do it. Wizard Bloody Wizard, with its tossoff Sabbathian title, classless cover art, and seeming trashcan simplicity of presentation, reaffirms all of it. Electric Wizard have beat the system. Again.

Their themes as ever set in drugs, horror, murder, disaffection, and so on, one might accuse Oborn and company of playing to familiar elements in their work — still, in other words, existing in that shadow. As “Mourning of the Magicians” talks about the children of Saturn amid its intertwining layers of chug and wah-caked lead guitar, and “Necromania” seems to call back to “Venus in Furs” from Black Masses in its psychosexual vibe, that argument might prove valid, but there’s no question that in texture and overarching sound, Electric Wizard have indeed pulled off a turn in these tracks, away from the swirl and toward the churn, generally speaking. That’s not to say the organ-led “The Reaper” or the dirge-marching “Mourning of the Magicians” — in the chorus of which Oborn delivers the title-line to “See You in Hell,” tying the first and last songs together for yet another display of underlying cohesion — are lacking in ambience, just that they take a slightly different route to get there than they might have on the last couple records.

Whatever else they do sonically or in terms of songwriting, Electric Wizard brook no middle ground when it comes to opinion. “Yes!” or “Yuck!,” but almost never “meh,” in terms of audience responses, and whichever category a given listener might fall into, one doubts Wizard Bloody Wizard will do much to sway the opinions of those whose minds are already made up, but when engaged on its own level and taken in appreciation for the subtlety that exists beneath its purposefully harsh and at times gleefully wretched exterior, there’s little else one can call it but the band’s finest work in the decade since Witchcult Today. It may or may not be the beginning of a next stage of their already storied and massively successful career — and in a way that’s not something we can know until they follow it up — but by changing the balance of aspects already relevant to their style, Electric Wizard have managed to find new life in their craft while still cloaking themselves in the unmistakable stink of death. There’s a reason they are who they are.

Electric Wizard, “See You in Hell” official video

Electric Wizard webstore

Electric Wizard on Thee Facebooks

Spinefarm Records on Thee Facebooks

Spinefarm Records website

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Electric Wizard Announce New Album Due this Halloween

Posted in Whathaveyou on May 5th, 2016 by JJ Koczan

Having headlined this past weekend at Desertfest in London and Berlin, and ahead of playing Psycho Las Vegas this August, Up in Smoke in October and likely more to be announced, UK doom mainstays Electric Wizard announce the Halloween release of a new studio album. Yet untitled, the upcoming Electric Wizard LP is set to arrive through their own Witchfinder Records imprint, a subsidiary of Spinefarm Records, and will follow-up 2014’s Time to Die (review here). Adding intrigue to the prospect is the statement below that the ninth Electric Wizard outing will “represent a fresh turn of the turf.” I’m not entirely sure what it means, but it’s an intriguing thought either way.

Just off the PR wire:

Electric Wizard

ELECTRIC WIZARD TO RELEASE NEW STUDIO ALBUM IN 2016

DELIVERY EXPECTED IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN RELEASE VIA SPINEFARM RECORDS…

Spinefarm Records are aware that free and wild cult leaders, ELECTRIC WIZARD, are working on their ninth studio album, with delivery expected in time for a Halloween 2016 release.

This is all the information available. The whereabouts of the band and the recording / mixing details are not currently known, but more news should follow in due course…

This new offering will be the follow-up to 2014’s ‘Time to Die’ – which can be purchased HERE– and will be the second release on the band’s ‘Witchfinder Records’ imprint, the result of a worldwide deal with Spinefarm Records.

‘Time to Die’ effectively closed the lid on a particular part of the band’s career, and this new album will represent a fresh turn of the turf…

Until that time, get your fix of pure evil at one of these live performances:-

08/26/16 – Psycho Las Vegas, Las Vegas, US

EW recently headlined ‘Desertfest’ in both Berlin and London, finishing off the festivals (and the attendees’ ear drums) with the sort of performances that have made them the true gate-keepers of UK metal’s great & glorious traditions.

For More Info Visit:
www.electricfuckinwizard.com
www.youtube.com/user/ElectricFuckinWizard
http://electricwizard.merchnow.com/

Electric Wizard, Live at Desertfest Berlin 2016

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