Electric Wizard

Creepy Crawl, St. Louis Missouri (USA)
(12 December 2001)

"We're Electric Wizard, from England!"

Fans of sludge-heavy riffing doom need no introduction to Electric Wizard. They're all about Sabbath, H.P. Lovecraft, murder, and copious amounts of weed. On December 12 these stoned-out doomsters hit St. Louis, Missouri as part of a revue-type tour sponsored by Metal Maniacs, which also included bands such as Scar Culture, Diabolic, Macabre, and Enslaved. As The Wizard says, they kaned harder-they blew everyone else off the stage and doom prevailed, just as it should.

We drove over 2 hours in the rain, and got to the Creepy just in time to catch Diabolic, which was IMO fairly standard death metal, nothing too special. The crowd numbered something like 100, which wasn't too bad for such a small venue. Spiked gauntlets and black tee shirts with unreadable band names were much in evidence, along with ever-increasing clouds of smoke. Next up was the mighty Electric Wizard. Much comment has been made on other sites about Jus Osbourne's overly-extended guitar tuning sessions and drummer Mark Greening's inability to keep his hi-hat adjusted. When I read this I figured jet lag was at least partially responsible, along with the band's legendary pot intake. Whatever, because all of that was left behind in St. Louis. They started off with the classic 'Supercoven', and the doom flowed. I was interested in the crowd reaction to the sludgy slow goodness, and was surprised to see a lot of grins and bobbing heads.  Hell yeah!  After that they launched into 'We Hate You,' and their grip on the audience tightened.  By the last tune, 'Dope Throne,' a pit had started and the doom was complete. Electric Wizard was loud, relatively tight, and they made some converts among  this crowd of death/black metallers.

Well, it looked as if The Wiz had a good time doing it. Jus even treated us to some guitar heroics during 'Dope Throne,' and drummer Mark spanked the hell out of those traps!  He played so hard that one crowd member said "he looked like he was giving himself a heart attack." Yep. The coolest member was bass player Tim Bagshaw, standing calm and maybe a bit tired to the right.

Next up was Norwegian black/Viking specialists Enslaved, and I have to admit they put on a good show. They seem to be heading down a more progressive path, dropping in clean vocals here and there, and I don't' think I'm mistaken in sayint I heard a stoner riff or two as well. Are they black metal's answer to Opeth? I don't know, but I like where they're going. Last up was Macabre, with their tales of serial murder. I didn't care for them too much, but there was a definite element of humor injected into the music, so it seems as if they don't take themselves overly seriously. And that's a good thing.

Sources deep in the Wizard camp say that at least some members are not happy with the mix of bands on the current tour. They were willing to take a chance and try something different, but they feel that the strong death element has created a mismatch. From my own selfish perspective, I'd say that whatever gets the doom out to potential converts is fine by me, and The Wiz definitely made a good impression on St. Louis. The word is that they've got a new album coming in March, and there will be another US tour to support it. I'll be there, soaking up the doom once again.

Setlist:
Supercoven
We Hate You
Weird Tales
Return Trip
Dopethrone

- Kevin McHugh
(13 Jan. 2001)
Pictures from band
homepages and not SHoD3


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