Hijos de Saturno: Sludge

Jus Oborn (vocals, guitar, bass), Liz Buckingham (guitar) and Mark Greening (drums, organ)

For Electric Wizard, Time to Die meant not only the (short-lived) comeback of Mark Greening to the band's lineup, but also the return to their more heavy sound. In this sense, one must remember that Witchcult Today and Black Masses had reflected a sonic drift in which the group's psychedelic stoner/doom, virtually a trademark of their own, was softened in favour of a more vintage, retro sound. Time to Die thus presents the inrush of renewed misanthropy tinged with psychedelic and hypnotic densities, pretty much in line with the path that the band from Dorset had been pursuing until 2004's We Live.
Nonetheless, in contrast to their previous works in this vein, Time to Die is a less digestible record and it requires many listens in order to reveal its richness, which has a lot to do, undoubtedly, with its manifest depressive character. Indeed, if in records such as Dopethrone Electric Wizard's narcotic misanthropy translated into a destructive fervour (see, for example, the lyrics for "Funeralopolis" or "We Hate You"), here it manifests itself in self-destructive impulses ("I wanna get high before I die, I wanna die...", Jus Oborn sings in "Incense for the Dead", or "I am nothing, I mean nothing", in "I am nothing") that demand the listener to be in a specific mood in order to really dig the album.
That being said, this is a powerful record whose sound and composing efforts are the reflection of a much needed process of renewing the band's energy, inasmuch as their last studio works –especially the Legalise Drugs & Murder EP, from 2012– showed a serious exhaustion of Electric Wizard's formula. And quite possibly a good portion of that new energy came from chaos: the departure of Glenn Charman and Simon Poole and Mark Greening's turbulent return. The corrosive forces of conflict within the band's core –Greening would leave short after the release of Time to Die– fed the scratchy creative process behind this album, for sure, and gave it a radiance that hadn't showed up in Electric Wizard for almost a decade. And now, we'll just have to wait to see what the future will bring to "the heaviest band in the universe". —IMF

Jus Oborn (guitar, vocals), Tim Bagshaw (bass), Mark Greening (drums, piano) and Paul Sax (violin on "Night of the Shape")

During September and October 2001, Electric Wizard faced a huge challenge: to record the successor to Dopethrone, considered by many as the band's masterpiece, and the album that, undoubtedly, earned them the moniker of "the heaviest band in the universe". Indeed, Dopethrone marked the milestone of a formula that, within its transition that started with their self-titled debut, had reached its pinnacle: a sound in perfect equilibrium between psychedelia and density, and lyrics rich in misanthropy and hatred towards a miserable world in which there's nothing else to do but to escape.
In that sense, it was already evident that there was nothing else to do within the same spectrum, so something had to change. And although change is never wanted by conservative and stubborn fans, Electric Wizard took that sidestep; they ventured into that "no" that translated into a "fuck it", into a risky twist, into a sound that didn't have to prove anything and that, experimental, undertook the trip towards another dimension. Let Us Prey is exactly that: a statement, an adventure without frontiers. Electric Wizard lost fans, but thanks to their liberation, managed to record one of their best albums.
As is clear in its sound, the band's fourth LP turned the old misanthropy into schizoid, transformed it into a furious roar and, at the same time, into a cosmic blast-off, into a rampant allucination, into a lethargic and incoherent vociferation made by someone who already began a one-way trip, with no return. The twitch was so powerful that it weakened the trio's own foundations, as if no such turbulence were possible without losing sight of the experiment itself. After a tour throughout North America, Tim Bagshaw and Mark Greening left the band in 2003 and Electric Wizard would redefine their course, leaving behind Let Us Prey as an indelible testimony of the narcotic vehemence of those last days. —IMF

Electric Wizard | 2014 | Time to Die

Electric Wizard | 2002 | Let Us Prey