Stoner Rock emerged as a sludgy backlash against the extreme velocity, technicality and brutality of post-Thrash Metal. It endeavored to return to the primal soup that gave rise to Black Sab, Blue Cheer and Deep Purple. No band better exemplifies this trend than England's Electric Wizard. Their sticky resin riffs supply amazingly long hits, songs regularly surpassing the ten-minute mark. If, while listening to bands like Sleep and Acrimony, you find yourself nodding out during the blackened slugfests of down-tuned guitar and droning basslines, you may find this to be a difficult traverse. Electric Wizard manage to out-heavy both of those bands by burrowing even deeper into a molten pitch of de-tuned rumble and piping feedback. The lyrics are pretty churlish, sporting references to a Chthonic world of wizards, warlocks, demons and such, but somehow it doesn't detract. Fans of this stuff come for one thing, basically: godly heavy guitars. Of that, Electric Wizard have a mother lode.
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