Electric Wizard

Witchcult Today

Candlelight Records 2007

Electric Wizard is One of those bands that has always been sort of a mystery to me as they seem to engender really impassioned fans who scream about how great their music is and how "cult" a band Electric Wizard are.  I have always been of the opinion they are a little overrated and their new album Witchcult Today is not the album to change my mind.  Perhaps it is because I received much better Doom oriented albums from Witchcraft and Orthodox at the same time but this album just hasn't been doing that much for me.  These Stoners know how to rock out as evidenced on Dunwich with its reverberating throbbing guitars.  And they manage to incorporate some chilling keyboards in The Chosen Few which gives it a sort of 70s black magic feeling.  But for the most part these songs are just "solid" and never really set themselves out too far from the middle of the pack in the Doom/Stoner scene.  Treading a well worn path that recalls Black Sabbath at its darkest and most psychedelic, Electric Wizard seem content to stay the middle of the road, venturing neither towards nostalgia nor towards a sense of adventure through experimentation.  Unless of course you count the roughly 8 minutes of ambient/ritual/noise that comprises the majority of Black Magic Rituals & Perversions.  Electric Wizard is a band that has generated a lot of hype and underground buzz due to its traditional take on stoner doom but once you get through the dope induced haze you can hear that they are nothing more than average and not truly worth all the hype on contrast to come of their contemporaries.  If you seek solid but unspectacular rocking dope anthems then Electric Wizard is perfect for you but if you want something more Nostalgic or more adventurous then search elsewhere.