Electric Wizard – Time to Die
Tracklist:
- Incense for the Damned
- Time To Die
- I am Nothing
- Destroy Those Who Love God
- Funeral of Your Mind
- We Love The Dead
- SadioWitch
- Lucifer’s Slaves
- Saturn Dethroned
Title: Time to Die
Label: Spinefarm Records
Release Date: 09/30/2014
Playing Time: 65:23
Genre: Doom metal, sludge metal, stoner metal
Country: England
Year: 2014
Website: Visit page
It’s been four years since the ultra dark Black Masses and the band haven’t changed, well, except the departure of Mark Greening and the welcoming back of Simon Poole. You don’t want Electric Wizard to drastically change direction. Could you imagine an Electric Wizard glam metal record? Nope, neither can I. And that’s what I like about Time To Die. It’s straight forward no bullshit Electric Wizard heaviness and it delivers with every drop tuned riff.
Jus Oborn – lead vocals, guitars Liz Buckingham – guitars Clayton Burgess – bass Simon Poole – drums, percussionTime to Die opens with the beautiful natural sounds of a running river, a precursor to the sound of you pissing yourself when sludge kicks in. The rhythmic sounds of marching snares give way to a riff that could only have been spawned by the dark lord Tony Iommi himself. Slow, doomy, and with just the right amount of blues to make you dance.
One thing that does stand out straight away is how far back in the mix the vocals sit, this at times can become annoying and frustrating. They’ve always sat behind the doom on previous Electric Wizard records but this seems even further back. I did find after a few spins that it becomes clearer and it does add to the gloomy atmosphere of the record but at times you my find yourself straining so hard you’re likely to cause an aneurysm. Perhaps this is what Electric Wizard are aiming for, hence the title Time to Die.
Other than the distant vocals, the production is, in lack of a better word, electric. “Time to Die” carries with it an atmospheric pressure, a build of static charge in anticipation of release. This is felt heavily on tracks “I am Nothing”, “We Love the Dead” and “Saturn Dethroned.”
The use of organs on “Saturn Dethroned” brings the album to a pinnacle of almost Opeth proportions. The organs are used sparingly well throughout the record, but it all comes to a boisterous thunder head on “Saturn Dethroned”. It plays so well from the wild work at the end of “Lucifer’s Slaves”, a flawless transition.
I love the weight this record has, it carries such a force with it. It broods and waits in the dark corner for you to work up the courage to experience it time after time, don’t worry, there’s no Cindy Lauper in sight here, just sludge.
Time to Die isn’t for the easily offended or light-hearted, take the song title “Destroy Those Who Love God” as a guide to buying this record. It’s as dark, gloomy and brooding as you’d expect from Electric Wizard. It is a thunder storm, it is a earthquake, it is a hurricane of a album.
Rock the fuck on and hail Electric Wizard!
