Electric Wizard - Time to Die (2014)^{Release ID: 231}

Taking "Black Masses" at face value as a tame throng of occult ridden doom, you could be wondering exactly where Electric Wizard could take us on their next opus? The fact is nobody sat waiting for this record expecting any massive shift in style, or change of pace or sound, so it could be argued that Electric Wizard's task was made easy by the simple act of working within the restrictions of the very genre in which they sit.

So where did the group taken us this time? How do you follow up a solid yet mediocre slab of doom like "Black Masses"? Simply put you just ramp up the darkness, ramp up the evil and down tune a bit more. To take your slow and heavy, established sound and find renewed fire in you belly to take it onto another level all together takes effort and thought and that is obvious in abundance on "Time To Die".

As album opener "Incense For The Damned" begins it's obvious from the off that the darkness that seeps from every riff and vocal is meant to be all consuming like getting a big hug off Count Dracula himself. Throughout the record the band have elected to run with voice over footage which sits really well with the atmosphere and aesthetic of the album as a whole.

As a whole opus it's a lot to take in at one sitting and it's only when you sit back and take in the nightmarish effects of the vocals married with the haunting melody and crunching doom of the sounds that you start to appreciate the experience better. Take a time to sit jaw agape at the thundering weight of the opening to "I Am Nothing" as the whole band bludgeon your skull into dust with as heavy a slab of doom as you'll have heard in along while.

Throughout the fuzz-drenched hour and a bit Jus Osborn whines and wails over the plodding bestiality of Liz Buckingham's riffs as Clayton Burgess and Mark Greening show their importance in the sound as a whole, underpinning everything perfectly. If you have ears you'll find "Time To Die" a massive step up from "Black Masses", in fact it's on another level altogether, a different fucking planet.