I don't really know what to make of these doleful Englishmen, but I do know that they have created some of the most depressing, suffocating shrouds of sonic gloom that have ever been spewed forth from the hands of man. "Doom metal" is a fairly close approximation, but "psychedelic torture" or "drug drone" would be equally appropriate.

Their self-titled debut was a perfectly serviceable platter of doom metal basking in the glow of Black Sabbath and Cathedral but the second record "Come My Fanatics" shocked the music community with long offerings of crawling distortion punctuated by ultra-spacey guitar and vocal effects. In effect, it made Sabbath and Cathedral sound very commercial. The real deathblow, though, was third record "Dopethrone", reviewed elsewhere here, which is very possibly the single heaviest, angriest, most crushing record ever. It remains one of my all-time favorites and will never be surpassed as an example of how monumentally brutal a riff can be. This brings us to "Let Us Prey", the latest spell cast by the Wizard. Well, it is certainly not as immediate or as catchy as "Dopethrone". If anything, it's a return to "Come My Fanatics" as there are only six tracks here and most are sonic funeral dirges soaked in lysergic venom. The riffs are often repeated so relentlessly that the listener will either scream "I surrender!" or else be swept up into a hypnotic trance. "Let Us Prey" is a record of layers. The basic riff is hammered home but on top of that we have strata of distorted frequencies, acidic guitar noises, muffled vocals and droning pulses. The result is true "acid rock", but often delivered with the potency of death metal and the smoldering anger of punk.

I can't say I like this one nearly as much as "Dopethrone" but it's Electric Wizard through and through. These madmen just don't give a damn what anyone thinks of them and they are going to create their opuses regardless of public or critical opinion. Massive amounts of drugs must have been consumed to write and perform this!

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2002 Year Book Volume 2 at  garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2001-and-2002.