The gutter

Electric Wizard review
A serious study must be undertaken into the long-term effects of listening to Electric wizards in particular the effects it has in relation to the listener’s physical appearance. After observing the throng who turned up for the Manchester leg of the electric wizards latest doom jamboree, I suggest that as the listener is subjected to the aforementioned doom monsters lumbering grooves and super sized riff-age, that the music causes the listener to metamorphose into a physical manifestation of the chief attributes that we all know and love about electric wizard. The question I put to you is-Is being a hefty slow moving beard mongering dude a side effect of listening to the wizard?

The answer… Who gives a flying Skull fuck if walking round the venue is like being lost in a hairy mountain range? Electric wizard do doom like no other and that’s all that matters! The current line-up will have left the few naysayers I encountered at the venue, who were wearily clinging to the falsities that the original wizard line-up are unsurpassable and the reincarnation was just ‘flogging a stoned horse with no legs’, eating their wispy unsubstantial comments.

As from the minute that Jus Oborn takes to stage the atmosphere never falters, darkness and dispare seep eerily into the souls of the grinning multitudes as the opening sample track, which in all probability has been half hinched from an obscure Italian horror movie, creeps out of the sound system. After the mood has been set…Enter mammoth sized rumblings of ‘Eko Eko Azarek’ which doesn’t so much ‘seep eerily’ into the soul but forces its way in using slow blows from a very heavy, blunt offensive instrument. Doom or be Doomed!

All hail the Mr Greaves! This fellow pummels his drums with a thunderous ferocity and style that makes it’s easy to consider him one of the stand out drummers in the genre, throughout the show only stopping to punctuating the end of a song through waves of feed-back with two middle finger salute to a mesmerised crowd. Lets be fuckin avin ya! The addition of Liz Buckingham and Rob Al-Issa on second guitar and Bass adds a definite new depth to the wizard dynamic making classics like ‘Dopethrone’ and ‘return trip’ even more mind blowing and potent.

As the final sustained note vibrates through the venue and reality sinks in that that’s all us mere mortals are getting from the mighty Electric Wizard tonight this young fellow fell into a drug induced intense session of post gig depression and decided to reside slumped at the bar and observe Cathedral over the vast and hairy mountain range that stretched forward to the foot of the stage. Sadly their set is a blur due to my vision, hearing and thought patterns being disrupted by intoxicating substances. The hairy mountains seemed to thoroughly dig the show though.