Electric Wizard at Myspace

Electric Wizard’s latest album ‘Witchcraft Today’ is a definite return to form after the disappointing ‘We Live’. There were two main problems with ‘We Live’ – It was too technical and the production was too clean. This problem is rectified with ‘Witchcult Today’, with the evidence being clear to hear from the titular first track which has the ambience of a loosely-improvised jam session dating back to the early 70s, a feel mostly due to the experience of capturing the vintage sound of producer Liam Watson, most famous for producing indie stalwarts The White Stripes’ album, Elephant.

The second problem with ‘We Live’ is that it was meandering, but not in a positive sense. The spacey drugged-up Electric Wizard classics such as ‘Come My Fanatics’ and ‘Dopethrone’ meandered in a marvellously dishevelled galactic way that added to the cosmic bong-driven atmosphere that made Electric Wizard’s reputation. ‘We Live’ meandered meaninglessly and tediously. Probably as a reaction to this, the songs on ‘Witchcult Today’, despite being on average around eight minutes long, are cut of all excess fat and baggage, meaning that every second of riffage counts in Electric Wizard’s effort to create a sonic drugstorm of a record. Apart from the pointless and mind-staggeringly needless and dull instrumental tracks, which thankfully don’t take up much of the records content, every moment on this album is vital and it seems that Electric Wizard have finally made a record that is at least the equal to Dopethrone, and maybe even better than that seemingly unbeatable masterpiece.

Lazarus Blackstar at Myspace

Lazarus Blackstar’s first album “Revelations” was a classic of the sludge genre. Many bands, particularly in the UK, had trod the path well-worn by the likes of Eyehategod, Grief, and Iron Monkey. But none of them, not Raging Speedhorn nor Mistress, have done so in such an original and portentous way as Lazarus Blackstar did with “Revelations”, through adding the crust stylings of Amebix and the chugging plodding sense of groove of vintage Sabbath into the mix to create something that was more of the sum of its parts. Lazarus Blackstar’s sophomore album “Funeral voyeur” starts off as more of the same, with the title track kicking off proceedings with an ominous crawl.

“Funeral Voyeur” is Lazarus Blackstar’s last album with vocalist Paul Catten, who has left to join possibly one of the worst concept bands in extreme metal, The Sonataran Experiment. How Lazarus Blackstar will cope without Catten is uncertain, as his highly unique vocal style is part of the attraction. Imagine an 80 year old great grandmother from the Gorbals area of Glasgow. Now imagine that woman out of her face on vicodin, LSD, and Buckfast, screeching at the top of her voice at random passers-by at 3am. That is Paul Catten’s vocal style first used in bizarre spazcore pioneers Medulla Nocte and further used in sludge metal supergroup Murder One. His vocals convey a sense of hopelessness, agitation, and terror that few other vocalists in sludge metal can, with his performance on “I’m Not Paranoid (I Know That They Hate Me)” being the best evocation of sheer paranoia and mental instability this side of Art Bell’s coast-to-coast.

Other choice cuts include the apocalyptic “Revelation III: Conclusion” and “Loneliness”, which sounds sort-of like Candlemass if they had a Glaswegian pensioner junkie on vocals. All in all, if you liked the first Lazarus Blackstar album then you’ll like the second as there’s no progression. Where they go from here with the loss of such an integral part of their sound in the shape of Paul Catten is anybody’s guess.

Ufomammut at Myspace

One of the metal bands I was always embarrassed about liking is Deicide, and one of the reasons why was that any satanic rite undertaken to “Satan spawn the cacodemon” or the like would be one of the lamest blasphemous acts ever committed. It would be the ritual that the guys who went to the A/V club at school and the Young Conservatives at University went to. You want to know the music all the cool kids sacrifice virgins too? Its “Idolum” by Ufomammut, a record that drips with a supernatural malevolence rarely seen in doom metal. Sinister riffs evolve throughout the course of each song producing an air of foreboding that pays off magnificently when each new segments comes into play and chills you to the bone. Behind these gargantuan riffs are haunting keyboard lines played on vintage synths and moaning and howling yet somehow ethereal male and female vocals that bring to mind Jarboe of Swans fame. Add some unsettling laughing, crying and cursing in the background and what you have is possibly the most evil doom record since “Black Sabbath”.

It’s also one of the most original ones I’ve heard in a long while. While the influence of genre staples Hawkwind and Neurosis can be heard within this vile connotation, there are some more unorthodox comparisons that come to mind, like the thought that “Idolum” does for psychedelic doom what Blut aus Nord’s “The Work Which Transforms God” did for industrial black metal, in that it created the genuinely wicked and malicious atmosphere that was always capable of being spawned from the genre’s roots.

The pinnacle of “Idolum” is “Void”, a 21-minute epic that is the penultimate track on the record. It starts with a low-key yet evocative build up, which by the 9 minute mark turns into a sludgy murmuring segment that is somewhat reminiscent of Moss, then subsequently turns into a pulsating yet hypnotic drone that might be considered too much for even Sunn0))). This continues with various intoxicating changes in frequency and tone for 8 minutes before reaching a crescendo with some disturbing spacey synth and distressed female pleading, before kicking into the motherload of all riffs with “Elephantom” acting as a post rock-cum-sludge bookend to the record. This record is so complete for the occult metal experience that the only thing missing is your own virgin to sacrifice, but hopefully you can find one at your local Young Conservative / Republican branch office to enhance your “Idolum” experience. If you want evil metal, as in actual malevolence rather than teenage cartoon theatrics, then this is the album for you.

The Freezing Fog at Myspace

One would not expect that a traditional heavy metal album would come from the same plectrums of the same people who gave you Converge-approved metalcore heroes Beecher, despite the fact that Beecher themselves were originally conceived as a doom metal band, but rest assured if you absolutely hate metalcore (if you don’t then check out Beecher’s “This Elegy, His Autopsy”) you’ll probably be interested to check this out. Apart from the mark of mid-period Cathedral, there’s not a single influence that’s later than 1976. The riffs of Sabbath, the twin guitar attacks of Thin Lizzy, the stomp of Budgie, the genius of Deep Purple, the muddy power of Blue Cheer, the progressive bent of Hawkwind yadda yadda yadda. Basically this is the sound of heavy metal before Judas Priest and Motorhead got their hands on it, revisited through a stoner prism.

The lead guitar work by one “Charles Edward Godby” (like Beecher they insist on using their middle names in the time honoured serial killer fashion) shows an immense sense of power and rhythm, as vast riffage collides with soulful and psychedelic leads. The songs are expertly structured with many different variations on 70’s heavy metal ebbing and flowing in a natural and delightful fashion with the spacey Jimmy Page meets Kyuss solos being an obvious highlight. David William Hopkinson’s soaring masculine yet distinctly Lancastrian vocals bring a passionate and forceful resonance to the music, somewhere between a lower pitched version of Budgie’s Burke Shelley and a hell of a lot more tuneful Lee Dorrian!

This is the perfect album for chilling out, drinking a few beers and smoking the odd joint (a subject visited by the band themselves in their stoner hobbit epic “No Light, No Smoke”) to on a summer’s day. If this band had been around in 1974 they would have been legends, as it is in 2008 it’s a godamn awesome piece of trad metal heavier than fiat punto full of hambeasts, with not a growl, scream, or a trace of punk rock in sight. Although released in the United Kingdom by Roadkill records late last year, this record is being re-released worldwide in August this year by Dental records with 2 bonus tracks, so I would take some marks off for some Roadrunner-esque tactics there, but it’s hard to stay mad at these stoners for long with such quality guitar work on display.

Centuions Ghost at Myspace

I first saw Centurions Ghost live in 2005, in the basement of a dodgy pub in one of Birmingham’s dodgiest suburbs. The pub has since gone, torn down probably to create more yuppie apartments as is the way in most major UK cities, but the memory of that performance remains as visceral today as it was back then. Centurions Ghost’s second album, ‘The Great Work’, proves they still had whatever it was back then, being a stunningly visceral doom album that takes elements from sludge, thrash and death metal.

The most explicit influence on ‘The Great Work’ is Crowbar, though this is nowhere near straight-up hero worship. They are heavier and more technical than the boys from New Orleans and they disregard Crowbar’s hardcore elements entirely, and make their depressive side more subtle and less melodic. Evidence of their innovation is seen on album opener ‘The Supreme Moment’, which starts with an ever-so-slightly mathematical verse before sweeping in with some soulful guitar harmonies in the chorus. Winter, Celtic Frost, and Cathedral would be other good reference points, with ‘Bedbound (In the House of Doom)’ and ‘In Defiance’ having a distinct Entombed feel. The latter of those tracks abounds in the fattest groove this side of an armchair in a furry’s house, with the most sublime psychedelic guitar part five minutes in, and is the clear stand-out track.

Apart from the bizzare pairing of Biohazard’s more metal moments with some Flordian slo-mo death metal components in ‘Walking Through Walls’, this album is consistently enjoyable. A definite listen if not purchase for all fans of slow-paced extreme metal.