11. Electric Wizard—Witchcult Today (2007)
The time has come
.
All the chosen, time to put down your bongs.
Take up a knife, end all life.
Legalise drugs and murder.
—"The Chosen Few" Electric Wizard
In a world teetering on the edge of obliteration the line between camp and violence is strangely blurred. The orgy of sex and drugs that has been consuming much of the world for a while now flies completely off the rails and begins to spiral into rampant sadism and thrill killing. Now bizarre hipster death cults begin to spring up. Their soundtrack? Electric Wizard's
Witchcult Today.
These guys have many fantastic albums, in fact I'd argue that all the albums I've heard by them—which are all except two of their LPs for anyone who's counting—are pretty stellar.
Witchcult Today, though, is my favorite of the admittedly amazing bunch. It's always sounded to me like lying on a threadbare, musty couch in a hastily sheetrocked hallway, stoned out of your mind, bellbottom-clad legs draped over the armrest, listening to your buddy's metal band blasting through the walls of their practice space circa 1975. Not the actual 1975 but rather some cooler, better, more exciting 1975 where things were even more messed up—and fuzzed out metal bands were far, far heavier.
Similar to the previous album I reviewed here (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult's
13 Above the Night) this album manages to function on a campy, tongue-firmly-in-cheek level and on a nihilistic, bleak-as-hell level simultaneously, which when you think about it is really a pretty impressive feat. For Earth's final moments of wild, hedonistic abandon I can think of no better score.