Mountain stoner band Wizzerd throw down the fuzz on their third full-length album, Space‽: Issue No.000.
I don’t know what I have been doing with my life, but I didn’t hear anything from Wizzerd until the Ripple Music split Turned to Stone Chapter III: Wizzerd vs. Merlin. That one turned my head. Stoner mountain music is a real thing. I mean, I always think first of the desert when fuzztones ring, but this manner of music transcends all environments. Doomchild (2016) was the first, followed in 2019 by the self-titled album. And then there are a couple of demos and a string of EPs from Wizzerd circulating in the cosmos – a good chunk of music to make your way through on a journey you will never forget. The band is Jhalen Salazar (guitar, vocals), Jamie Yeats (guitar), Sam Moore (drums), and Layne Matkovich (bass).
The new record has eleven tasty tracks, beginning, appropriately, with “Launch,” which is a ramp of calamity to “Sisters of the Sun.” Listen to the opening bars of “Sisters” and you will know right away which island you have landed on. Happy-go-lucky transforms into a more serious-sounding hammering fuzztone that hangs on to the end, with dashes of guitar enthusiasm. Staying in space, “Supernova” continues the exploration on essentially the same plane. It does feel like the urgency has amped up on this one, and I love the dual guitaring. “Attack of the Gargantuan Moon Spiders” does not take place in space but might as well for the way it fits in with the early tracks. You can feel a down shift, and it is a good, rollicking gear. The psychedelica is kicking in hereabouts and once it gets its tendrils in you, there they stay.
What appeals most to me about this record is the incredible guitar work. The trippyness is fine thing, too, but I will always walk across the room and point at the guitars. There is a loose-form jamminess to many of the passages and those meld better with your psychic self in its altered state, but no alterations are actually necessary to enjoy the music. Watch out for “Space Chase” to give you an adrenaline injection, and “Doom Machine Smoke Break” for a nice hypothetical cool down that is actually a deep dive into the nature of things. This album definitely cooks. Recommended.
Space‽: Issue No.000 is out on Friday, September 30th through Swedish label Fuzzorama Records. In the US, Bandcamp is the easy place to pick it up (once it appears there – at this writing there is only a single showing up … patience).
Links.
Bandcamp, https://wizzerd.bandcamp.com/
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/wizzerddoom
Fuzzorama Music, https://www.fuzzoramarecords.com/
© Wayne Edwards
Flying Fiddlesticks Music Blog 