Electric Wizard at the Roundhouse

I did see Electric Wizard, etc., at the Camden Roundhouse on 15 May, 2015. This venue is rather overspecified as a metal dive, though a bit short of toilets once the frontloaders arrived, having missed

A wondrous ponder

Moss, for example, who confessedly are an acquired taste (that I have not yet acquired), though the resolute refusal of their sole guitarist to play any riffs may be something to be admired. Indeed, almost all rock guitarists play slightly ahead of the beat to generate a sense of pace, but he plays either on or slightly behind, generating an overwhelming sense of ponder, and wonder - though only in the sense of "what chord will he try next?".

Stars

Following them Purson were relatively normal, with some new material moving away from a quixotic indulgence to a more driving heavy rock in the direction of the Grateful Dead... though I could not hear the synthesizer or the rhythm guitar. I understand that after an EP they are working on a second album; perhaps their third will be the masterpiece.

Cosmic plugs

Now, a synthesizer I could hear well, even too well in the shrieking bits, was the retro contraption of the Cosmic Dead, their first number a rather fast jam on Interstellar Overdrive, their second an orthodox mass in a monastery of monks battering their heads against gold-backed prayer books. How to dance to this? Yes! One must turn one's head from side to side, if not entirely round and round, like the whirling dervishes of old! This also allowed us to flummox the common moshers. Their third Sign was a glorious swirling construction of great weight, and then speed, marrying to the Floyd a Stockhausen. Well this was extraordinary stuff, though not something I could really imagine listening to at home.

Could Electric Wizard match this? Another of their curious one-off performances, bludgeoning on its way, in surprisingly coherent sound, with lurid film projections compensating for static stagecraft, weak bass and unexceptional volume. I gathered many of their acolytes wished to get high before they die. They deserve to cancel as many of their Black Masses as they like, say I!