Dopethrone - Electric Wizard > Reviews > Loveless and Cold

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	Flawless
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	The heaviest piece of music ever  -  almost unearthly
Disadvantages:	Not for the faint of heart

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Bereft of all hope of redemption, all that Electric Wizard can do is to continue their downward spiralling journey into the abyss of pain, misery and insanity. With the superb Supercoven they seemed to have laid down the gauntlet to heavy bands everywhere – top this, if you dare. But they’ve answered the challenge themselves and produced the single heaviest musical entity in all of creation: Dopethrone.

A terrifying journey into the centre of minds so twisted and addled by pain, depression and substance abuse that they make Charles Manson look well adjusted, Dopethrone is a masterfully hewn work of pure doom. This is not music for the weak of heart – heavy, dark, slow and utterly devoid of anything resembling happiness or light, this is music for those times in your life when you think that things can’t get any worse – just to show you that they can! The guitars and bass are downtuned to the point beyond which there is no return, and Jus Osbourne’s guitar is fuelled through a mighty bass amp. The deep, rumbling distortion is like the explosion of nuclear devices not too far off, and the music moves at a pace reminiscent of a dinosaur: slow, lumbering, but heavy as hell and just as unstoppable.

Vinum Sabbathi starts off the album in suitably mystical mode with a riff which pours from the speakers like a molten haze of ganja smoke. Osbourne’s voice is so tortured it sounds like the chords which attach him to life are about to snap, and the drums pound all around you like meteors on judgement day. If you’ve never experienced the Wizard before, this will leave you reeling – the music isn’t so much heard as felt, deep in the gut, and at some points it gets to the point where the resonance has almost physical effects. Absolutely unbelievable – totally unsubtle start, but utterly crushing and irresistible.

The deceptively mellow bass into to Funeralopolis can only bring to mind a trek around the ruins of civilisation, dark but at the same time possessing a kind of solitary beauty – it revels in its isolation. But when those guitars kick in again, they possess the usual power that only the Wizard can convey. Apocalyptic guitar riffs wander like lost titans across a world shaken by bass undertow and pitted with the drum beats of the armies of Armageddon. How something this heavy can move is almost beyond comprehension, and yet move it does – slowly, almost imperceptibly, but with a kind of epic grandeur that only something as awe inspiring as Ragnarok could possess. This is easily the finest song on the album – a dark depressing apocalyptic stew foretelling the end of the world in prophetic fashion. Disturbing in the extreme.

The pace picks up for the Weird Tales trilogy, as the first song, Electric Frost escapes from the CD as if its seals have been broken. The lyrics are based around the works of H.P. Lovecraft, and rarely before have a band been so well suited to conveying the feeling of extra-cosmic horror and chaos that this demands. The riff here is awesome, bringing to mind all the obvious Sabbath comparisons, but a thousand times more heavy than anything Black Sabbath could have dreamed of. When it does slow down, your speakers had better be up to challenge or the bass will simply pound them out of existence. Music has no right to be this heavy, and that as much as anything is why it is "Lovecraftian" - it seems to emerge from somewhere entirely outside our universe, dragged through cosmic barriers by travellers whose minds have moved beyond our plane. The keyboard solo is superb, seeming to swirl into a mindless vortex, dragging you towards God alone knows what. The two instrumentals which finish this trilogy, Golgotha and The Altar of Melektaus, are both superb as well – much slower moving that Electric Frost, but no less evil, twisted or destructive. They rumble, twist and turn throughout space, just beyond the auspices of earth – before they finally take the plunge and urge themselves into deep space, where they can wander alone and insane through the stars for what seems like an eternity.

Barbarian continues the pulp novel theme by being about, of all things, Conan the Barbarian. Somehow, this strange Manowar-ism seems to work, as again their music is so violent and demented that it fits the barbaric berserk theme rather well. The only problem is that this would have fitted a fast song better, and Electric Wizard don’t do fast. Nonetheless, slow or fast the sheer power of this is unbelievable and carries it through any lyrical inanities by battering criticism out of the way with a well aimed blow of its iron fist.

I, the Witchfinder, is clearly a Cathedral homage, harking back to their mighty Hopkins (Witchfinder General). This is somewhat more crazed – the bass riff that starts this is truly sinister in the darkest sense of the word – if music can induce actual fear for one’s life, then this is it. And inquisition of tortured guitars apply another turn of the metallic rack while the drums and bass slither malevolently through the torture chamber of this track demanding confession of all your heresies. The mellow segments in between the violence merely allow you enough time to catch your breath and beg and mercy before the assault and battery begins again.

The Hills Have Eyes starts off with a rather Blue Cheer like late 60s vibe, and then descends into the pure malevolence of We Hate You – a horrifying concoction of misanthropy and hatred for all mankind that is quite infectious. The riff is truly as heavy as a thousand tons of molten lead rushing over you, slowly drowning you in its horrible embrace, but at the same time it is undeniably a very catchy riff. The eerie bending notes of the lead guitar give a terrifying glimpse into the minds of the unutterably insane.

The title track is excellent as well, a homage to doom metal in exceptional style, Jus’ voice is at its best creaming out in throat tearing fashion "Feedback will free your mind, and set you free". This is what doom metal is all about – dark, blasphemous and depressing, but ultimately freeing – a kind of black musical sorcery designed to free you from the constraints of mortality and send you flying across the universe. Incredible solos add to a hallucinogenic musical brew which will kick your ass across the galaxy and then back again. Lasting for just over twenty minutes, this track is a true trip, and it has more twists and bends in it than Minos’ labyrinth, and it’s just as confusing. The most astonishing thing about it is that it remains interesting the whole time, even if you’re not stoned. You simply can’t pull yourself away – I think the music is so heavy it’s developed its own inescapable gravitational field, something like a black hole.

Ultimately, trying to review this album, or any of Electric Wizard’s albums, is almost futile. They aren’t there to be analysed and dissected – the music is a concoction of such magical, mind altering potency that reviewing it and trying to take apart its component parts is futile. Let chaos reign, and let all bow before the Dopethrone, or be destroyed! The world is doomed, folks and it’s time to escape – there is no better vehicle to escape on than the mind-altering vibe of Electric Wizard. If you’ve never heard of this band, but think you’ve heard heavy music - buy this album and prepare to be blown away.