Electric Wizard
Dopethrone

THE REVIEW

Electric Wizard are the extreme example of a drug-fueled journey, lived amidst anguish and obsessive paranoia. Their music is a morbid mantra of black magic, a kind of dark and suffocating psychedelia, a degenerate offspring of early Sabbath and a natural continuation of the psychoactive atmospheres of the seminal Sleep. Their delirious musical journey, begun in 1994 with the modest debut album "Electric Wizard" (according to many, too influenced by the style of the early Cathedral), continues with the definition of their own style, characterized by a greater presence of psychedelic elements, already hinted at in their second album "...come my Fanatics" (1996) and fully developed in the subsequent EP "Supercoven" (a terrifying example of extreme psychedelia, a sublime concentration of space atmospheres tormented by the deathly cadence of doom-metal).

The English band, plagued by continuous drug addiction problems and their consequences, submerged into a long period of silence lasting almost four years (excepting the two EPs "Supercoven" and "Chrononaut"), casting uncertainty on possible future developments. The catatonic state enveloping the band's creativity, however, is interrupted by a sort of growing cult which, paired with the insistence of Fans, produces the desired effect: a new album and corresponding tour.

In the autumn of 2000, the long-awaited third LP "Dopethrone" finally comes out, a sort of concept album based on the group's troubled past experiences, elevated to a manifesto of their existential discomfort. The musical inclination expressed by this intense album leans more towards a markedly doom form with sludge nuances, making the sound perhaps more claustrophobic and oppressive than before, yet equally steeped in those spatial digressions now firmly embedded in the band's DNA.

The slow and devastating stride of the opening track "Vinum Sabbathi", vents its fury with a condensation of negative electricity and unhealthy vibrations that introduce the following "Funeralopolis", a kind of epic ritual with strong apocalyptic references, baptized with the lighting of a bong and a barely perceptible sigh of pleasure at the track's opening.

The darkness further emphasizes its supremacy in the subsequent "Weird Tales", an endless horror trip that dilutes and expands the excessive saturation of the sound, creating a darkly lysergic atmosphere growing and tracing imaginary trajectories towards the unknown. However, the flame of doom continues to shine, constantly kept alive by a now chronic tension, leading to the monstrous "Barbarian" and "I, the Witchfinder" and in turn broken by a brief instrumental interlude "The Hills have Eyes". The concluding "We hate You" and "Dopethrone" rise from hell, to transform into a malevolent anthem to soft drugs and once again affirm the immense power of the electric wizard.