Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard

Hey, just in case it hasn’t been obvious for the past two decades, Electric Wizard really really likes Black Sabbath.
Getting past the pretty awful album cover and into the music, Wizard Bloody Wizard finds the doom/stoner metal giants floundering probably more than ever in slightly sludgier Sabbath-worship with not much aim in mind it seems other than to emulate the band they’ve already tried so hard to emulate.
The flanger-ish semi-raspy vocals across the album, while intended to sound snarling and devilish in a classic sort of way, with their small range and one-track delivery are instead monotonous and a hugely boring feature of the album. Tony Iommi could also practically file for a restraining order for the way the guitar playing on this album is so transparently trying to follow him and copy his style of riffing, with Electric Wizard repeating so many of their carbon-copy-of-carbon-copy riffs to the point of almost becoming plain, emotionless drone. The rest of the band does little to amp up the excitement either, so no one really gets off the hook for this one. But god, what a difference it would have made if just the drumming was more exciting, or if there were some slick, tasty bass lines. Unfortunately, the band’s three-year project presents just under 50 minutes of dulled sludge-doom with an unfitting classic/retro metal flair (if something so homogeneous can even be described as having flair).
I’ve been pretty negative about the album so far, but the negative and the positive of this album kind of exist on opposite sides of the same coin. On the positive side, Electric Wizard sure can do a convincing Sabbath impersonation (with all the practice they’re had at it), and they do channel a similarly dark, sacrilegious vibe with a bit of extra heaviness that sounds like what Sabbath might have sounded like if they had started this year instead of ending their career this year (RIP Black Sabbath, and thank you for being the beginning to this wonderful form of music). In fact, with Sabbath’s retirement this year I can understand why Electric Wizard would want to play more in tribute to them. And as far as highlights go, “Wicked Caresses” is probably the most notable to me for its actually ascending vocal melody and the slightly more energetic riffing throughout the song.
Still though, with very few catchy riffs or choruses, the album plays more like a milking of the retro-novelty of the sound rather than a tribute to it. The incredibly bland blend of drone-y stoner metal, especially on the album’s closer, make it seem as though the band are in limbo between taking on another challenge of matching the massive heaviness of Dopethrone and riding the same kind of 70′s throwback bandwagon Opeth has been on since Heritage.
I don’t know why Electric Wizard keep opting to ride the very old coattails of and live in the shadow of Black Sabbath, especially when their most universally revered work (by myself included), Dopethrone, was applauded so because it was so different and unique to the genre (and impenetrably heavily sludgy).

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