Dopethrone (Dopethrone - Electric Wizard)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Dopethrone - Electric Wizard
Date:	03/07/08 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The ultimate stoner doom experience.

Disadvantages: Perhaps too much reliance on studio trickery and amplifier effects to achieve atmosphere.

'Dopethrone' is simultaneously Electric Wizard's finest offering and one of the defining albums of modern doom metal. Making no small display of the band's orientation towards drug worship, this isn't permitted to take over the music or lyrics to a ridiculous extent (not like the work of Bongzilla for example), but it would still prove immensely satisfying to like-minded listeners (I imagine).

Jus Osborn's vocals are now more distorted, adding to the slightly inhuman and synthetic atmosphere, and the guitar riffs are actually fun and memorable for once, a little reminiscent of Cathedral (though their extremely stoned take on the story of Hopkins, Witchfinder General is less instantly gratifying than Cathedral's version). Songs merge together to grant a sense of continuity, but still stand apart and individual, and although this is a pretty extreme example of stoner doom, I'd still recommend it to curious newcomers. It's only in the final song that the growling tone of the down-tuned, infinitely distorted instruments actually starts to turn the stomach.

1. Vinum Sabbathi
2. Funeralopolis
3. Weird Tales:
... i) Electric Frost
... ii) Golgotha
... iii) Alter Of Melektaus
4. Barbarian
5. I, The Witchfinder
6. The Hills Have Eyes
7. We Hate You
8. Dopethrone

Summary: Electric Wizard's third album (2000).