Electric Wizard
Dopethrone

THE REVIEW

Premise: this album is not easy. Surely, some who have listened to it have said it sucks, but it should be listened to several times before judging, given that "Dopethrone" by Electric Wizard turns out to be the long tale of a band that, during the recording of this album, spent more time getting high than on their instruments. Indeed, the compositions turn out to be abnormal with infinite times, so much so that Electric Wizard wanted us to feel how they were: stoned. Dopethrone by Electric Wizard is an album from 2000, considered a huge pillar of the slower and darker genres of Metal, such as Sludge Metal, Stoner Rock, and especially, Doom Metal. The sound turns out to be innovative: unlike the band’s previous album "Come My Fanatics...", there are some musical differences, and among these we find the melancholic voice of singer and guitarist Jus Oborn heavily distorted, while the instruments appear more distorted than expected, and even put in the foreground.

We start with "Vinum Sabbathi", the shortest and "fastest" track on the album, with a duration shorter than the other songs on the album (3:05), yet there seems to be an audio connection with the next song, "Funeralopolis", the masterpiece of the album: it begins with a very slow part and, almost at the end of the track, it unleashes, giving life to the best moment of the album. And after this slow triumph, we face "Weird Tales", a hypnotic journey progressively composed of three parts, starting from the fast and swirling "Electric Frost" (first part), then moving to the dark and gloomy "Golgotha" (second part) and finishing beautifully with "Altar of Melektaus" (third part). After this spatial vortex, we return with a purely doom metal track "Barbarian", heavily influenced by Black Sabbath. Moreover, the entire album is influenced by Sabbath. The next track, "I, The Witchfinder", I find to be the darkest track of the album, but the next track called "The Hills Have Eyes" is simply an instrumental of a few seconds, preparing us for the worst in a few words... indeed, here comes the initial distortion of "We Hate You" announcing that the listening restarts through this song that manages to convey various moods all at once, but obviously, depression is the dominant element of the song and the album. The last track "Dopethrone" closes this masterpiece beautifully... with half pure Doom, and half silence, which can only mean one thing, namely that the album has opened new paths for many bands and classified Electric Wizard as one of the best Doom Metal bands and beyond.

In conclusion, I don't think there’s much difference between smoking a couple of joints and listening to this "Dopethrone", because, after having listened to this masterpiece, everything seemed stranger to me. Not that I smoked a couple of joints, to be clear, but this album truly has something that few albums have. I absolutely recommend it.