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Review: Electric Wizard, Bierkeller
London’s Riddles sure are a rum kettle of fish. They start off all Hawkwind – y’know: chugging riffs’n’spacy synths – which is actually quite refreshing, since few bands seem to use the Hawks as a template these days. Then things begin to get heavier, Alice Cooper’s School’s Out riff is pressed into service, and eventually their vocalist appears to mutate into Arthur Brown. These guys are clearly ’70s connoisseurs, for whom NWOBHM marks the climax of all that was great about rock music. It’s an entertaining mess, but a mess nonetheless as their magpie approach produces a sound that’s all over the shop.
Speaking of NWOBHM, here’s Angel Witch to rock like it’s 1980. They don’t really belong in the same sentence, but very much like The Ramones this is a band who’ve shifted way more merchandise than records. Famously, Angel Witch bothered the charts just once, reaching the lowest possible rung, number 75, for one solitary week. Thirty-seven years on, ravenous doomsters swiftly strip the Bierkeller merch stand of those covetable Baphomet T-shirts. Name another no-hit-wonder who could achieve such a feat, if you can.
As is so often the way with bands of this vintage, enough musicians have passed through the Angel Witch ranks over the years to form a couple of football teams, with several substitutes plus referee and linesmen. So tonight we get founder Kevin Heybourne and Some Other Blokes. Things don’t start especially well, with Heybourne’s wavering vocals buried in the mix. Oh dear – could this develop into an embarrassment, prompting the already sizeable audience to melt away towards the bar? Mercifully not. Sorcerers, from the band’s debut, clearly strikes a chord with this doom crowd and a remarkable turnaround ensues as the sound is sorted, Heybourne leads a full-on twin guitar frenzy and a mosh-pit develops during Baphomet – Angel Witch’s contribution to the Metal for Muthas compilation that sated a generation’s desire for loud and aggressive music that wasn’t punk rock. They end, of course, with Angel Witch and a mass crowd singalong.
is needed now More than ever
There’s much to admire about Wimborne occult doomsters Electric Wizard. Their hard-won underground overlord status has been sustained for more than two decades now and always ensures a packed audience. Such is their confidence that they invariably bring great support acts. And it’s certainly true that howlin’ Jus Oborn and his missus Liz Buckingham’s patented brand of rudimentary, heads-down, lumbering Sabbath-on-Mogadon sludge has a hypnotic effect upon the chemically attuned who come to worship at the Church of the Wizard. For heretics, however, the epic, rumbling grind of their music also has a tendency to become rather monotonous. When the pace finally picks up during the final minutes of traditional set closer Funeralopilis, it comes as something of a relief.
Still, one has to concede that this is very much a minority view among the packed and sweaty slo-mo headbanging Bierkeller crowd, which frequently disgorges delirious crowd-surfers. But while Electric Wizard may remain the High Satanic Priests of doom, it’s fellow travellers such as Pallbearer and Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats who are driving the genre forward.
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