Electric Wizard - Black Masses (2010)

[ComfortablyNumb]

Black Masses



Band - Electric Wizard
Genres - Doom Metal / Stoner Metal / Sludge Metal
Year of Release - 2010

Personnel

Jus Oborn - guitar, vocals
Liz Buckingham - guitar
Tas Danazoglou - bass
Shaun Rutter - drums

First off, a warning, the best way to encounter Black Masses for the first time is with headphones.

This is Electric Wizard's most recent LP release. I can sum it up with this. It's noisy, dark, groovy, sludgy stoner doom. It is not as heavy as most of their previous albums. It is more of a downtuned psych-rock record.

It it deals with the typical themes that Electric Wizard loves to explore, Satanism, nihilism, sadomasochism, apocalypse and drug-fueled paranoia. It is filled with fuzzy, bassy, feedback-laden guitars – where melody creeps in only through constant and extremely psychedelic soloing. The vocals on this album are also particularly noteworthy as vocalist/guitarist Jus Oborn seems to show even more development and reminds me a bit of John Lennon and Ozzy Osbourne if they were to sing their vocal while being inside of a closed coffin/casket. This coupled with the production makes it hard to pinpoint what exactly is going on unless you have headphones on.

Listening to Black Masses is like creeping inside an ancient ruined building at midnight while drugged out of your mind. You don't know exactly where youre going and all the whole time you hear strange noises all around you that you have no idea where they're coming from.
The experience, however, is strangely, much more pleasant than this description

Overall I think its a really good borderline great album. A few songs could have been ended a little sooner and I think the album could have been cut down to 7 tracks instead of 8, because track 8 "Crypt of Drugula" is really just feedback and phantom noises.

If you dare call yourself a fan of classic metal and do not own a copy of Black Masses, then go get it.

Track listing

"Black Mass" - 6:06
"Venus in Furs" - 6:22
"The Nightchild" - 8:02
"Patterns of Evil" - 6:30
"Satyr IX" - 9:58
"Turn Off Your Mind" - 5:51
"Scorpio Curse" - 7:31
"Crypt of Drugula" - 8:49


Songs




Full Album if you want to give it a listen.


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[Metal Head Mike]

Nice review. Big fan of Electric Wizard. This has become one of my favourites released by the band. Seen them live on this tour. Was freaking awesome. Can't wait to see them again someday

 

[Sweaty]

Missed them a while back as they could not make the festival due to troubles in home country, would love to see them...