• Electric Wizard - Black Masses (2010)

     

    I found this album recently at my local record store for a reasonable price and got absorbed by the dark sound of this record. I decided to buy it and discover it further and in a profound way at home. After several spins, I try to talk about this first real doom metal record that I have ever bought with the exception of the early works of Black Sabbath.

    "Black masses" is a perfect title for this record and it only slightly reminds of early Black Sabbath or Candlemass. I would cite Voivod's "Phobos" as a reference as this is also a noisy and dystopian record. There not many melodies or hooks to find but an absorbing atmosphere that would perfectly fit to an experimental horror movie. The riffs are heavier than steel, slower than a horde of zombies and the noises weirder than things that Iron Butterfly and others discovered in the late sixties with their psychedelic rock. But that's another good reference, as this album has an absorbing sound reminding of the sixties and seventies. In the booklet, the band sends its thanks to Serge Gainsbourg, Baader-Meinhoff and Marijuana and that's pretty much what it sounds like: experimental, weird and everything else than commercial. This record is neither catchy nor easy to digest.

    This is the kind of album you can hate or adore. In a dark and rainy April night, you might adore the album's atmosphere while you mind just get headaches from the noisy sounds if you listen to it on a soft summer morning. You have to be in the mood to listen to it and it happens that you might listen to it and be stunned but not willing or able to listen to it again for another few weeks. This is an album for rare occasions.

    The further the album goes the less addicting or appreciable it gets. The album asks a lot of perseverance and concentration. The first songs like "Black mass" are amongst the rather straight tracks that could please to fans of early doom metal. The last and longest tracks such as "Crypt of Drugula" are overlong noisy sound experiences without any structure in which you can get lost or be thrown out immediately. The album has a slow but continuous development from acceptable and structured songs towards very weird an unusual stuff in the ending that can almost be described as a concept. The album has a clear structure and is well sought. That doesn't mean that it is diversified or surprising as you clearly get delivered what you might expect when you just have a look at the cover artwork, the song titles and a few random songs and lyrics.

    Before you decide to buy this album, just check out the first and last track of the album to get a good reference and to be sure to like it. It's difficult to give a certain rating to this record as it has interesting artistic intentions but is very annoying and somewhat hypnotizing as time goes by. The only thing that is clear is that this album sounds quite different from anything I have ever heard before and it gave me the taste to discover more doom metal or stoner rock stuff in a close future after I have digested this stuff. I will surely discover this record over and over again as it requests multiple spins and a very open minded attitude. I’m pretty much sure that I have bought a rare pearl and that this record will grow on me even if I still have a love-hate relationship towards it.

     

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