Review Summary: Your dope-laced blood shows me new highs
2004’s We Live showed signs of life in Electric Wizard after the original lineup splintered, debuting their new two-guitar configuration in the process, but 2007’s Witchcult Today was the true start of the band’s second wind. The slow motion riffs, hazy atmospheres, and weedy cosmic horror world-building remain and are met with tighter musicianship spurred on by their seventies inspirations coming more to the forefront. 2000’s Dopethrone may be more generally recognized as their magnum opus but one could argue that this album has been just as integral to the developments in modern stoner-doom, if not more so.
I’m not high enough to suggest Electric Wizard went pop or some ***, but the presentation here is undeniably more accessible. The band’s grainy lo-fi production of old is largely phased out in favor of a retro fuzz brought out by the use of more vintage equipment, resulting in a subtly boutique makeup. The vocals also build on its predecessor’s more melodic tendencies, still lathered in echoing effects but getting to be more prominent in the mix with a greater emphasis on engaging choruses.
The songwriting sees some intriguing juxtapositions as a result, the structures retaining a loosely tangential nature even with the more put together playing. Electric Wizard’s established knack for hypnotic riffs gets to be even more potent when they’re accompanied by some especially catchy choruses and the segments where they’ll jam on a progression for minutes on end become even more infectious with the right sing-along mantra applied to them.
You also gotta love the heightened eroticism that comes into play between the forwardly thrusting rhythms and more seductive lyrics. Whether it’s “Dunwich” putting Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” through a Lovecraft filter or the stoner vampire and horny inquisitor hooks respectively defining “The Satanic Rites of Drugula” and “Torquemada 71,” this is music seemingly made for ***ing as much as it is for dissociated head-bobbing.
That said, the album’s influence is also a bit of a double-edged sword for the bad habits it may have perpetuated in the genre. The opening title track, “The Chosen One,” and “Torquemada 71” are pretty guilty of having what essentially feel like variations of the same riff, eventually developing more distinct identities through their choruses but one can’t deny the ammunition it gives to detractors who already deem this style one-dimensional.
It’s also easy to notice points where the songs could’ve been trimmed a minute or so. The closing one-two of “Black Magic Rituals and Perversions” and “Saturnine” is commendable as each offers a contrasting approach to their lengths, a sample-heavy instrumental freakout alongside a stretched-out groove exercise with another winning chorus, but we probably didn’t need two eleven-minute tracks back-to-back.
Witchcult Today may be a couple flaws away from being among the best that stoner-doom has to offer, but it’s still ultimately a great album whose impacts on the genre have only become more obvious with hindsight. It certainly plays a seductive hand incredibly well, luring in the listener with an infectious blend of atmosphere and memorability that are more composed than anything Electric Wizard had previously achieved. There are enough of the band’s core traits and recurring motifs for the shift to not feel out of character and it no doubt made a great impression on those getting exposed to their methods for the first time. I personally think 2010’s Black Masses may have been a little better at conveying this approach across a full-length but the multiple highs on display here rank among the band’s absolute best.
