Warthur Having produced perhaps their heaviest post-Dopethrone release in the form of Time to Die, for this followup Electric Wizard have gone right back to the other extreme of their sound, incorporating extensive heavy psych influences. They don't go full psych, but the style of metal here is very much sat on the stoner-doom boundary, with a tone reminiscent less of Black Sabbath than it is of the various hard-edged garage rock bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Naturally, their customary subject matter hasn't changed all that much - "See You In Hell" pretty much sums up the manifesto of the album, and is called back to in a catchy chorus on the closing Mourning of the Magicians.

Certainly, this is a more accessible than average Electric Wizard - it doesn't instantly immerse you in the deepest depths of doom like Dopethrone did, nor has any Electric Wizard release been quite as toe-tappingly catchy as this one. Nonetheless, nobody could accuse this of being an especially commercial sound either. Perhaps it's simply Electric Wizard deigning to notice the wave of 1970s-worshipping horror/fantasy-reading occult rock groups who've grown up in their wake, and taking the chance to beat them at their own game. As far as I'm concerned, it's yet another essential release from them.