Customer Reviews

Dopethrone (Dig)

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is offically one of my new favorite records (right behind Boris' new album) From the opening Black Sabbath head nod, "Vinum Sabbathi" through the epic "Funeralopolis" and "I, The Witchfinder" on to the amazing heady closer "Dopethrone" this is album is just full on sludge doom stoner metal. EEvery song is blanketed in a warm glow from mounds and mounds of distortion and feedback. The distortion practically consumes the drums and the vocals....

Vocals lie somewhere near Ozzy Osbourne, (He actually sound very like Steve Austin from Today Is The Day) but with some effects and pushed way deeper in the mix. (which means you wont have to worry about picking out any cheesy lyrics) The one thing that I really like about this album is the fact that the drums arent completely swallowed by the guitars. Their older album Come My Fanatics, while also great, tends to bury the vocal and drums a little too much leading the songs to become almost formelss at times. But Dopethrone remedies that while still maintaining full bore with the guitars.

The songs are long, hazy and thick. The drums lurch and the guitars hold deep ass power chords for more than a few seconds at a time, definitely threatening to blow your speakers. (NOTE: THIS ALBUM IS VERY CAPABLE OF DESTROYING YOUR HI-FI AUDIO EQUIPMENT - TEST IT OUT BEFORE YOU BLAST IT AND BLOW YOUR SPEAKERS OR AMPS) you will want to play this as loud as you can just for the sheer force of the guitar and bass rumble....have I aped on the thickness of this whole thing enough? I could never do it justice. Imagine a version of Sunn 0))) that actually tried to rock out. That would be pretty close to the heaviness present on this disc. Though I love Boris, I definitely believe that the Wizard is far heavier.

My favorite track is "Funeralopolis". It starts with a heady instrumental jam, very bluesy with some hella deep bass. Then it rumbles in and the chords just envelope you. This is one of the few songs that picks up the pace slighty, but only after pummeling you with a three note guitar riff for about 4 minutes. By the end of the song they are galloping full steam and they even throw in what sounds like an echoplex. This makes the final few measures extremely spacy and frantic with the guitars and vocals swirling. A very nice acid drenched touch ala Comets on Fire.

Another fantastic track is "I, The Withcfinder" Easily the darkest track on the album and another opus of a song. I would have to say that all the tracks are extremely worthwhile, even the tiny jam "Hills Have Eyes" which leavens some of the overwhelming power that this band is capable of, only to drop you off on "We Hate You" and then the masterful closer "Dopethrone"

This music will definitely appeal to stoners who like their music loud. It will also appeal to fans of older metal and lunatics who are looking to have their bowels shaken by subsonic doom jams...
Something about the fuzzed out thick ass guitars just makes me happy. Especially when riding the subway and I know people can hear just a maelstrom of noise pouring into my head from my headphones....It just makes me smile. If they only knew...

This CD is so heavy... I was barely able to carry it from the music store to my car. The weight of first getting ahold of it nearly threw my shoulders out of socket. Once I was finally able to get it to my car, I thought everything would be okay... until my car collapsed under the weight. The CD was too heavy... my car couldn't support it. Unfortunately my insurance doesn't cover that sort of situation, so I'm majorly screwed.

This album is messing up my speakers. I'm not kidding. This music grinds like none other. I'm going to admit something here... with music this heavy, you play it loud, right?... right... and this sounds SO GREAT loud... but... certain parts of certain songs... just get so damn heavy, I just can't take it anymore and I have to turn it down just a tad for a short period, and then turn it back up when I recover. The first paragraph of this review was a joke. This paragraph isn't. I am 100% serious.

I don't smoke weed anymore, but this album is making me seriously consider starting again. I nearly get high just listening to it. When I was first sampling Electric Wizard - Dopethrone, I was a bit apprehensive about the vocals... usually with music of this nature, there are either guttural growls or piercing screams... but the vocals here are different in that I would compare them to Chino Moreno (Deftones vocalist) when he is not singing in his "soft" voice, but not outright "screaming" either... if you have Deftones - Around the Fur, put the disc in and put it on "Dai the Flu"... and when Chino starts singing the lines, "What's surprise I was right here going off and going on," toward the end of the song, the singing style AND the effects that are added onto a lot of Chino's vocals is what Electric Wizard's vocalist Jus Oborn sounds like. And surprisingly, it didn't take much getting used to at all to come to the conclusion that it works really well. I LOVE the vocals. I am now of the opinion that it totally fits this music.

I won't even start on the guitars. They are just too heavy. Seriously. The resonating distortion just doesn't end, along with the exagerrated grind and deathly low subsonic notes. If you were to turn the bass setting all the way down, Electric Wizard - Dopethrone would STILL sound more booming than 90% of other music with the bass turned all the way up. I would propose to these guitars, but I don't think you can legally marry inane objects or the sound waves they produce.

I wouldn't even call this "doom" metal... this is... *scratches head*... I would describe this, as "AENLTT doom"... and that stands for, "Anyone-else-not-listening-to-this doom," because anyone else not listening to it, is doomed... because when you see them, you kick their ass for not listening to it.

I rest my case.

I was praticing with my band one day and after the pratice, we went for a ride. Our bassist later on put on a mixlist of his mp3s. One song was a long bass-heavy slow song, but with Radiohead ambiences. I asked, "Who is this?" It turned out to be Electric Wizard, and the song was Barbarian. After downloading several of their songs from the website, I ordered a copy for myself.

This is the best stoner metal album ever. Everything is long and thick and heavy, and druggy. Just what a stoner metal band should sound like. Every song is a classic. "Vinum Sabbathi" and "Barbarian" are slow heavy groove songs with some great production. "We Hate You" could be the single off the album, but it's too good for radio. The real fine work off the album are the REALLY long songs that are 10-15 minutes.

"Weird Tales" is the first big song, and my favorite song off the album. There are 3 parts, one is very groove heavy, the 2nd part a lot slower, and the third part the heaviest thing ever recorded on tape. "I, The Witchfinder" is another great epic, with the longest ending ever. Jus Oborn's vocals are just awesome. There's a great effect on his vocals that makes it another instrument, instead of being up and front, like a lot of bands. Then, there's the really cool "Dopethrone," which, despite saying it's 20:48, is actually 10:26. It's still cool though. It's like a longer version of "Barbarian." This is a great album with some unforgettable riffs. Get it as soon as possible if you're a true heavy metal fan.

Earth-shattering amps are the weapon of Electric Wizard in the classic DOPETHRONE. Each track is an awesome ride in riffdom, soul-crushing in its doped-out intensity. Stand-out tracks include "I, the Witchfinder," "Funeralopolis," and, of course, "Dopethrone." DOPETHRONE as an album displays such a mastery of the art that is the heavy doom/stoner riff that it may well be copied in the genre for years to come. There are others who have mastered the art, but DOPETHRONE will always be remembered as a classic because of it.

If you are watching MTV instead of listening to DOPETHRONE, you should probably be hung. Well, actually, I recommend the brazen bull.

If you dig heavy music, this is a must have for your collection. This is low end doom heavy, like Sabbath on acid x 10. This is a really, really great listen, super psychadelic and trippy, crazy, creepy, heavy doom riffs from some planet light years away were the creatures evolved from shroom spores and spiked leather collars.

And to top it off, this cacophony of doomcore is a power trio of burnouts from England.

Top notch, if you dig the heavy, cop this album immediately if not sooner.

Also, import seems to have an extra track at the end, bonus!

If you dig heavy music, this is a must have for your collection. This is low end doom heavy, like Sabbath on acid x 10. This is a really, really great listen, super psychadelic and trippy, crazy, creepy, heavy doom riffs from some planet light years away where the creatures evolved from shroom spores and spiked leather collars.

And to top it off, this cacophony of doomcore is a power trio of burnouts from England.

Top notch, if you dig the heavy, cop this album immediately if not sooner.

I can definately say after a month of listening to this disc, there is not ONE bad track on this album, seriously. "The Hills Have Eyes" is an exception, since it's a 40 second jam, so you can't exactly rate it. But every song on here screams with heavy, melodic, passionate doom music.

Amazing music, one of my favorite albums. Up there with "OK Computer" (Radiohead) and "Animals"(Pink Floyd).

If you've never heard EW before you probably think this is slow, grinding, dismal doom metal. Wrong! It's doomy all right, and it can be slow and grinding. But dismal? Forget it! This is the most fun you could ever have. Like Black Sabbath Vol 4, it's the sound of a band truly enjoying themselves, regardless of the overall mood of the compositions. And like Vol 4, it's actually groovy. There's a punky energy that takes your breath away. Dopethrone is one of those rare records that makes you laugh out loud the first time you hear it, because it's just so damn good.

The recording has a wonderfully fat, crunchy sound (which admittedly won't be to everyone's taste). There are psychedelic elements, but on this record EW never let themselves simply wig out, which they are guilty of on some other records -- notably Supercoven, which sounds uncannily like Monster Magnet's 25...Tab. I've heard Dopethrone described as sludgy, but to me it has that fizzing crispness that you get on the best Black Sabbath and Melvins records. Inevitably though if you tune your instruments down about twelve octaves you're going to lose some clarity!

If you've any interest in rock music, let alone metal, you should get Dopethrone. As far as I'm concerned it's one of the best heavy records I've ever heard.

This is pure unrelenting, grind-sludge, heavy (and i mean 1000 ton),metal bubbling in the glass vacuum of a bong. There are some great lyrics here, but they are mixed a little too quiet and as a result the vocals are obscured by some of the towering angular riffage. But that aside this is a very stoned album. Very sabbath-esque, but some songs are less melodic than i would like them to be. But,rest assured, listen for long enough, and behold! those melodies will rise quivering out of the fuzz.

Electric Wizard have become an iconic name these days upon metal, and with "Dopethrone", it's easy to see why.

The whole vibe crafted by this album is enough to send you into a daze; the use of drugs is not mandatory. The guitars are the shining stars on this album, in which they are aggressive yet slow and heavy enough to give off a sense of psychedelia throughout. If you want riffs, Dopethrone is packed with them. Like I said before, they're slow, sludgy and trippy enough to send you to another dimension. Vocalist Jus Oborn has his vocals pretty low in the mix, which wasn't uncommon with their Come My Fanatics..., but this is definitely not a problem when you pay attention to the guitars and the contributing drumming and bass work. If anything, his vocals are mixed around the right area, where he contributes to the instrumental vibe yet doesn't hinder it at all.

This is highly recommended for anybody that appreciates the glory days of Sabbath, crushing riffs, tripping out, or just appreciates some good metal in their lives. Essential.

Score: 9.6/10