| CD REVIEW Wizard |
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Band: Wizard Having had this Bochum based German True Power Speed Metal band’s two previous albums (reviews of Magic Circle and Goochanposted 15/08/2008 and 19/01/2007 respectively) on my workplate, I now find myself with the luxury of being able to direct you to those reviews for further info on the band’s antecedents! With their last release (which as you know was their debut for Massacre), the band successfully stepped up from being a popular Underground band to being a successful act, and very desrvedly so indeed, because Goochanwas (and still is) a very good album, which certainly deserved the attention the band has had since! Following the release bassist Volker Leson got together with William B. Nuke to write a book based on the storyline (according to the drummer the book came out rather on the heavy side to read, but he admits that’s a personal viewpoint when comparing the story the guys had made up in the studio). A couple of months after, old guitarist Michael Maass had terminated his studies and was welcomed back in the fold with open arms and hearts…making now for a dual guitar assault for the first time in the band’s history (a descision made as far back as mid 2006). Still, it took some time before live appearances would be done with Maassi, as he needed to get used to playing guitar all over again, but in the end he was victorious, and the first gigs as a fivesome showed a band at the top of their abilities! With the ongoing troubles in the music business due to an increasing amount of people downloading the stuff they like instead of going out to buy the albums, the band has seen their recordings budgets dwindle more and more over the years. Luckily the bassist has had the good sense to install a home studio, where the guys recorded the guitar parts, bass included (which enabled them to record on a more leasurly pace and, more importantly, without compromises). What with the drums and vocals recorded at a professional (home) studio with engineer Andy Horn, there was just…but only just…enough money left for the band to send the recordings off to Achim Köhler for the mixing [the choise being somewhat controversial, as he’d been responsible for fucking up the original recordings of the Magic Circle album (LMP insisted on a new mix, which had to be done in literally only a couple of days…lucky the band found Christian Jungeblut capable of doin’ it)]. As a result, the album sounds realy good! Pounding drums, great and awesome guitars, real good vocals…it all comes together perfectly! Although you might’ve expected the band to build on the open-ended Goochanstory for a next album Thor, as the title evidently suggests, sees the band return to their earlier investigations of Nordic mythology (check the 2003 album Odin), making for a nice conceptual album again! At myspace.com/wizardband, you can check out no less than 5 songs off the new album (alongside the beautiful “Call To the Dragon” off Goochan). You’ll notice that the boys have again incorporated a calmer passage on the semi-acoustic “Serpent’s Venom” (also featuring orchestrated keyboards). Anyways, as I said earlier, a nice album…even though I found Goochan’s lyrical viewpoint a bit more original. When push comes to shove, and after balancing things against each other (just like on Goochanthe new album after all contains some very memorable moments…and the sound IS a bit better), I think I’ll conclude by giving Thor a rating corresponding that of its predecessor! 87/100 Tony. |