Electric Wizard – Time to Die

It’s Time to Die

The country from which metal legends Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and many others hailed does not cease to produce some of the finest heavy metal in the world. This is made more than apparent by sludge masters Electric Wizard’s latest trek through the pits of hell in Time to Die. While this isn’t a landmark album as was Dopethrone, it is a doom-gilded return to Electric Wizard’s rightful place in England’s royal court of sludge masters, after their ill-received release of Black Masses, and is easily one of the best metal albums of 2014.

Time to Die starts with the song “Incense for the Damned”, with the sound of an ethereal pooling of water and a crackling recording of a “20/20” broadcast from 1984 about the satanic murderer Ricky Kasso. This breaks away to a de-tuned guitar-led romp through the woods to where Kasso’s victim’s corpse laid unburied and decomposing. Jus Osborn’s nasally, gritty, and waling voice lays in the back of the chorus of crunchy doomed psychedelia guitar work and skin busting snare. The album marches ceaselessly onward through the sludge-filled depths with songs like “Time to Die” and the sure-to-cause-controversy “I am Nothing.”

The transitions in this album are absolutely flawless and the entirety of the album runs like one long siege on the senses sure to leave only the most brutal metal fans smitten. To continue the onslaught, Electric Wizard throws in the sure-to-be-controversial “Destroy those who Love God” which ends with a sample of a child crying out “Almighty Satan, destroy those who love god!” They also demonstrate a love of feedback with the use of high-pitched squeals and scathing pick scratches in “Funeral of Your Mind” and the sustained frequency in “We Love the Dead.”

This metal masterpiece ends with “Saturn Dethroned,” a tour through Inferno guided not by Virgil, but by a beautiful and haunting organ only to end up back at the pooling of water in the ethereal woods and a last sampled track mentioning the only way to escape is through death or mental institute. Time to Die is truly one of the best sludge albums to come out this year and a testament to the metal gods that created it.