In ways the front cover of Electric Wizard's third album gives exactly the correct impression of it's continents. Black and white, loosely rendered, a devil smoking from a bong. The cover does not beat around the bush, it's blunt, in every scene of the word. The music found within delivers on all the promises. Electric Wizard craft some of the heaviest, swirling dark doom metal ever created, and they focus themselves mostly on the subjects of death, destruction, and heavy heavy pot smoking. If there was ever an album to get baked and destroyed to, this is it.
On the other hand there is something about this album that almost makes you want to scrap the cover all together. Call it a red herring. As every repeating riff makes you see red you think the cover should have been darker. As Jus Oborn's voice distorts further and further into violence you think the whole cover should have been covered in black, it should have been much much angrier.
And there in lies what must be the miracle of Dopethrone - it is full of contradictions that are simultaneously true. It is a fun album and it is a violently powerful album. It is an album with an incredibly singular sound, yet it is instantly accessible. It's an album to bang your head along with but it will also drown you.
Perhaps I just love it so much because it borders on so many other things that peak my interest. It's the most passionately angry thing around without devolving into noise, and by god it must be the most destructively repetitive thing this side of the minimal spectrum. Perhaps its the sound, so unique and direct that even friends of mine who seek only abstract beauty demand right away to know who made these sounds tearing up my speakers. But I don't suspect that's it. I think it's because - contrary to most metal music where I'm just in it for the fun, the epicness - when Jus Oborn shouts "I. Don't Care. The World. Means Nothing." my god I believe him. I feel every ounce of his words. This is not a game for these people, it's not fun. And through everything else that has to be why this album has such a hold on Everyone who hears it.
It makes you want to tear the world down.
-Stuart
If the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate was in a metal band, it'd write songs like Funeralopolis.
ReplyDeleteHadn't heard of Electric Wizard before. You can only get so much mileage out of Attila Csihar dressing like a tree, so now I'm even more happy I came across this blog.