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ELECTRIC WIZARD “Black Magic Rituals and Perversions, Vol. 1”
ELECTRIC WIZARD “Black Magic Rituals and Perversions, Vol. 1”
By Dr. Abner Mality
I didn’t know that ELECTRIC WIZARD was still even a thing. I think they’re so stymied on coming up with new material, they just decided “to hell with it” and figured they do this so-called “live” album just to get something on the racks and show they are still breathing. Now this isn’t something recorded in front of a huge arena or festival audience, but rather live “in the studio” and recorded right to tape.
Jus Oborn claimed this was in your face and raw as fuck and he was right about that. It really sounds like one-take in the studio. It’s about as organic as a compost pile of rotting vegetables and I mean that in a good way. One thing I noticed, though, is that a lot of the songs really tend to sound the same. The differences between “Witchcult Today”, “Satanic Rites of Drugula” and “Scorpio Curse” are pretty minute. Each song lumbers in very typical ELECTRIC WIZARD fashion, opens and ends with tons of feedback and features lots of scratchy acidic leadwork, along with Jus’ wailing tones of despair. This is the style the WIZARD made famous, but the album here really highlights the sameness of it.
I’m overjoyed they didn’t include anything from the horrific “Time To Die” record because that was absolutely suicide inducing. But “The Chosen Few” is not particularly a great choice and it drags on for more than 11 minutes. As you might expect, the best songs are still the ones from “Dopethrone”...an album so iconic that the band has labored mightily to even come close to it again. The title track opens with its awesome chorus riffs and “Funeralopolis” wraps thins up with another stone cold classic.
A peculiar live album, whose only reason to exist seems to be showing that ELECTRIC WIZARD is still alive in some fashion. Come on, Jus and Liz, we are long past due for some new drugged doom of despair!
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