Pre-Electric Wizard Is Pretty Wizard: Part I
Electric Wizard is pretty ubiquitous for anyone into doom metal, but they had a few earlier incarnations that never got past the demo stage that are worthy of note. I'm not necessarily unfamiliar with them, but I just feel like going over them again. First up...
P.S. If you have taste and want to buy this stuff, there is
a collection of all three of these band's only demos that should seriously kick your ass.
Lord of Putrefaction: Wings Over a Black Funeral
Jus Osbourne's first band was a pretty rudimentary death/doom band. This is primitive and ugly as this kind of music gets. This is also, along with Thorr's Hammer and Necro Schizma one of my all time favorite death/doom bands. Perhaps it says something about death/doom that none of these bands ever released a full length album. Perhaps death/doom is not a genre that particularly needs to be refined. Now I'm gonna reacquaint myself with this band because I f
ucking feel like it...
I'd forgotten how much straight up death metal was on this. There is some pretty generic fast 'n' furious death metal riffing on here, but the whole thing is so primitive that anything more refined or original would just be out of place. The doom doesn't take long to rear it's ugly head though, and being an Electric Wizard-adjacent band this means that your skull is well and truly crushed with some simple, brutal riffs that must weigh more than your average city block. The guitar tone helps this immensely, and is just as distorted and raw as every death metal band's guitar tone should be as far as I am concerned. And I have to mention Jus Osbourne's vocals. They are as guttural as DM vocals get and suit the music perfectly.
"At the Cemetery Gates" actually totally lifts the riff to "Raining Blood" from 1:39 to 2:15 and from 5:16 to 5:51. And I mean it is a blatant rip off. This would be a problem if they didn't use it to make one of those most insanely kick ass doom metal songs I've ever heard. If more bands could rip Slayer off so well then the world would be a better place.
Tasty. I'm already looking forward to the next band...