Having spent the past two decades turning the notion of taking things slowly – both musically and in terms of career momentum – into an art form, Electric Wizard will probably regard their recent assimilation into the world of hipster approval as an accidental bonus wrung from their own slithering persistence. The UK doom-metal legends certainly haven’t compromised at any point along the road, and although signing to a bigger label and winning over a few Shoreditch berks will ensure that Time to Die is the band’s most high-profile release to date, nothing can detract from the monumental density and weight of these hostile and misanthropic psych-jams. Immersed in macabre kitsch and THC’d into hellish oblivion, the Wizard’s trademark sound eschews experimentation in favour of the fervent pursuit of inconceivable, remorseless heaviness, replete with mesmerising repetition and enough reverb to make the whole harrowing enterprise feel like a slow-motion nose-dive into the abyss. The bleak, lumbering likes of I Am Nothing and Lucifer’s Slaves are the mutant children of Black Sabbath’s revered blueprint, driven by anti-cosmic desolation and wielding immense hypnotic power.
