.
Electric Wizard - "Come My Fanatics..." (Rise Above Records, 1996) [key tracks: Son of Nothing, Demon Lung, Wizard in Black]
.
"A tower stands on the edge of time, upon it stands the astral mind. The burning Chaosphere seethes behind...ours to see but we are blind. The eyes of God look upon what he's done, and the eyes of man look on and beyond... I am a god. I am the One. Into the chaos ,see my time has begun..."
.
Stoner rock. Learn it, live it, love it. It was in most of our veins before we even knew what "stoner" even meant. These days, it is music with the only groove I want to hear. It isn't that the music has to do with pot, or that the bands have to paste a sweet leaf to their drum head... its a feeling, an attitude, and a soul behind the music that makes it "stoner." So if you hear me talk about it, understand that in no way am I saying that I sit in my garage, smoke weed, and listen to songs about sitting in your garage and smoking weed. "Stoned forever, forever free" may be the mantra but a lot of us get the trip without the trip. Dig?
.
Electric Wizard is quite simply the heaviest band around. Black Sabbath invented the stoner low sound when Tommy Iommi screwed up his hand in a carpentry accident, and had to down-tune to be able to press the notes. Kyuss ushered in the modern age of stoner when (as Josh Homme claims) they simply dug how it sounded and failed to bother tuning their guitars. The Melvins blew minds with their 3-minute-long sustained dropped tune doom metal notes, feedback and all. And Electric Wizard has mastered incorporating these heart fluttering low waves of power into song form. "Come My Fanatics" is probably the pinnacle of stoom (stoner-doom, my favorite of all musical sub-genres). Pressed on beautiful purple vinyl, it wastes no times creating an audio have that nods heads and ignites lighters. There are only 6 songs on the 2 LPs, none shorter than 5:30, and then a 7" is thrown in with 2 additional tracks. Nothing beats stoom, because good stoom fills your listening space with atmosphere... much like lighting a scented candle would. You feel the hurmmmmm of a low B note rattling so low that the fretboard can barely keep the string in place. You hear the grind of the slow blues rhythm. You ingest the trippy psychedelic spiritual high fantasy/sci-fi lyrics. And best of all, the band never takes itself too seriously, allowing for the fan to immediately become part of the trip, not feeling inferior (my big complaint with bands like Tool and Fugazi). Electric Wizard: heaviest band on the planet! And best of all, no synth...
.
Man was it cold today! How can one person live in Iowa his whole life, only making short excursions to Norfolk, NE (colder) and Westminster, CO (higher altitude) and STILL not be used to winter? I am finding myself dressing in a ridiculous amount of layers lately, and still shivering. On a walk from an "arrived late" parking spot at Creighton University to class, one feels as if they will never see summer again. I listen to the Doors sing of "Indian Summer" and wistfully daydream, as if Jim was talking about a mythical land that never existed. Man, I hate winter.
.
Frozen horns up!
.