Monday night at Loppen isn’t usually the best day for neither bands nor bookers. Anyway, Nils of Doomed Denmark had taken the chance and booked mighty Electric Wizard – and the fanatics came for the dark sabbath. I guess there was a decent crowd of maybe 300 people ready to be slayed by the riffs.First band this evening was Rise Above label mates Blood Ceremony. The band is most well described as a mix of 70s hard rock and heavy prog-rock with references to Pentagram as well as Jethro Tull and with a distinct female singer. The bands self titled LP has had lots of critical acclaim.
This night the band showed their muscles as a live band – and they did well. The interplay between guitar and flute was excellent and also Alia O'Brien’s singing and keyboard play lifted the band high up. What was maybe even more impressive was the massive sound on stage. The rhythm group gave the band a rock hard bottom feel and the complex rhythm shifts really came to their rights. All the songs from the record were more heavy and doomier and a lot of people in the crowd seemed pleasantly surprised. The band even played a couple of new songs that sounded very promising for a future release of a new record.
And then after maybe half an hour it was time for The Wizard! The front of the stage was packed and everybody seemed exited. Electric Wizard is the band when it comes to doom. They were not the first doom band and they may not have put out a superb record in quite some years – but they are without doubt the greatest and the most essential band of the genre. Maybe it’s simply because Electric Wizard’s main man Jus Oborn has the ability to combine simple riffing with almost genius choice of melody.
The band started out with “Witchcult Today” and to me the sound was a bit shitty at first!? Maybe the vocal was a bit too high in the mix and the guitars too low. Anyway, it all changed dramatically when the band continued and everything started to peak in a magnificent evil version of “Satanic Rites of Drugula”. The sound had reached the perfect the perfect mix of sludgy heaviness and hypnotic monotony dragging people into trance. The dark ceremony ended with a long epic version of the evergreen “Funeralopolis” hailed by the disciples. One hour of the most intriguing doom ever on an unholy monday night …
Electric Wizard | Blood Ceremony | Gallery | Doomed Denmark
Posts
