MORBID WIZARD (Lord Of The Rats) CD
I am in a particularly nihilistic mood this day. Therefore I need some music that reflects that sentiment. Normally, I would listen to Grief's 'Dismal' or Boyd Rice's 'Hatesville!' (just to name a few), but then it struck me that I received this CD from Scott Stearns several months ago. MORBID WIZARD is a new band, featuring members of Fistula, Sollubi, Bibilic Blood, Ultralord and King Travolta. And of course, Scott Stearns is also part of the line-up. This means that 'Lord Of The Rats' is an uncompromising, misanthropic sludge assault or, in other words, the perfect soundtrack for my current disposition. But quite apart from that, it's a killer album through and through.
By comparison, 90% of today's sludge bands act like alternative rock bands. The beginning of the first track, 'Choked Out By The Hand Of Doom', is an excellent introduction to the following sonic apocalypse. Air raid sirens combined with death knells and a thunderstorm are definitely a reference to 'Black Sabbath' (the song) and 'War Pigs'. But what follows gives an idea of how it could sound if early Black Sabbath were on a thorn-apple and Absinthe diet. Jesse's hostile vocals are considerably distorted and flow like posion out of the speakers, while the band's enormous heaviness squeezes out the last scrap of joie de vivre. Fantastic! MORBID WIZARD pick up the pace with 'Lord Of The Rats', whereas 'The Perfect Skull' is enriched with some unsettling samples. Basically, each of the seven tracks is unsettling, but these samples increase that feeling even more. The double guitar attack of Bahb and Scott Stearns crushes everything in its path, but the whole production is perfect. It's loud, filthy and aggressive.
What I also like: the oblique and weird guitar solos which add a strange psychedelic effect to each song. Very often the solos running through the entire track as for example in 'Puke God'. Sometimes it seems as if the song structure would fall apart, but the brutal and mighty rhythm section, consisting of drummer Corey and bassist Duncan, holds everything together. That is (almost) all there is to say about MORBID WIZARD. Oh yes, I almost forgot the excellent packaging of 'Lord Of The Rats'. You will get a DVD case and a brightly-coloured cover artwork, which of course has been done by Scott Stearns. Overall, 'Lord Of The Rats' is a super-heavy, sick, hateful and mind-blowing trip, I would recommend for anyone.
(KK)