Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
I really loved this band’s last album, Come My Fanatics…. It possessed the heaviest guitar tone I’ve ever heard, plus an all-around more Doomy and oppressive sound than what we have here. This time, the EW guys seem to be going for a much more natural (yet still heavy) sound. That’s okay with me, and really if I’d heard this album first, I’d be telling you how heavy this guitar tone is. But, knowing how much more supremely crushing this band was and can be, I find myself wondering why they went in this kind of more groovy, Stoner Rock (as opposed to Stoner Doom, I guess) direction. Perhaps they wanted to continue to evolve their sound, but as a note to all bands, when you’ve reached perfection it’s time to stop evolving, because the only way left to go is down. Still, on its own merits, Dopethrone is a massive bong of groovy Doom.
(1) Comment(s)
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Jon Konrath said:
I realize you posted this 47 years ago, but for whatever reason, I listened to both Dopethrone and Come My Fanatics this morning and sort of A/Bed them. (I’ve started listening to more of the stoner/doom stuff while writing, because - well, I don’t know why. But putting on an hour-long Sleep song usually does the trick.)
I agree with both ratings here, but I would say that the tone difference is a lot in the mastering, and I think the Dopethrone mastering has a lot more low-end, but Come My Fanatics has a lot more mid. I don’t know how much of that is from how the general thought on production changed between 1996 and 2000, or just that the band went in a different direction. They both have heaviness, but the heaviness is in different areas.
I personally prefer the sound of Dopethrone, at least with bass-heavy headphones on. But I know you always liked Saint Vitus, which also has a similar production with a really thick mid-range that cut through more. Or it’s possible that I got a contact high straight through the digital audio somehow.
It’s sort of like if you get two chicks to puke into jars, and one is that really bile-heavy, thin acidic puke (the older album) and the other is a much thicker, food-chunky puke. (this album). You’d fuck either puke in a heartbeat, but I would personally prefer the kind that has chunks of corn and peanut and whatever else floating in the high-viscosity fluid, whereas you might prefer the tang and reek of a much more fluid vomit.
OK I should probably stop fucking around and actually write now.
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