Stoner/doom/noise rock contortionists, WIZARD RIFLE, will bring their cathartic hymns, heavy grooves and walls of distortion to the stage next month for a short run of live takeovers. Set to kick off on November 14th in Phoenix, Arizona at Time Out Lounge, team WIZARD RIFLE will trample their way through nearly a dozen metropolises, with the proceedings coming to a deafening close on November 26th in Brooklyn, New York at Saint Vitus Bar.
The Los Angeles-by-way-of-Portland transplants will be touring in support of their mammoth Here In The Deadlights full-length, out TODAY via Seventh Rule Recordings. Tracked by guitarist Max Dameron at Breakfast Studio in Los Angeles, then toiled over for a year, with Billy Anderson (Sleep, Eyehategod, Melvins et al) and Jesse Johnstone sharing mixing duties, the album sees WIZARD RIFLE for the first time as a trio featuring Dameron alongside drummer Sam Ford, and bassist David Boe pushing its sound into far sludgier realms and reaching new levels of monolithic heaviness, while maintaining a propulsive groove which spins and twists itself into oblivion. Elaborates Decibel Magazine in their December 2014 issue, “…with Boe’s bass anchoring the compositions, providing a welcome low end that adds obvious heaviness, the music flows much better than it did on the previous album. A song like ‘Paul The Sky Tyrant’ swings with mighty force and grace, while the more progressive, Beefheartian moments (‘Psychodynamo’) and skronky passages (‘Buzzsaw Babes’) are able to show a little more restraint this time around now that the bass can deflect some of the attention. It’s a marvelous step forward – a promising band expanding literally and figuratively, and sounding all the better for it.”
Hear for yourself. Sample “Crystal Witch,” still streaming at Noisey at THIS LOCATION.
WIZARD RIFLE Fall Tour 2014:
11/14/2014 Time Out Lounge – Phoenix, AZ
11/15/2014 Gary’s Place – Tucson, AZ
11/16/2014 Launch Pad – Albuquerque, NM
11/18/2014 Silver Dollar – Texarkana, TX
11/19/2014 Hi Tone – Memphis, TN
11/20/2014 Pilot Light – Knoxville, TN
11/21/2014 The Jinx – Savannah, GA
11/22/2014 Slim’s – Raleigh, NC
11/23/2014 Strange Matter – Richmond, VA
11/25/2014 Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
11/26/2014 Saint Vitus Bar – Brooklyn, NY
With a sound entrenched in a reverence for ’70s psychedelic and punk, and innumerable contemporary acts without ever feeling like a proverbial retrogression, WIZARD RIFLE seeks to transcend boundaries beyond reference points and obvious nods to rock idols. Still, they’re commonly likened to King Crimson, Lightning Bolt, High On Fire, Misfits, Karp, Melvins, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Sleep and so many others. In 2012 the band released their debut LP Speak Loud Say Nothing to critical adoration on Seventh Rule. Teaming up with Nanotear Booking, they honed their live sound on several US and Canadian tours, sharing the stage with the likes of Yob, Church Of Misery, Black Cobra, Arabrot, Rabbits and Witch Mountain. Last year, the band relocated from Portland to Los Angeles, and immediately started work on the delightfully riff-encased bruiser that is Here In The Deadlights.
Here In The Deadlights is out today on CD and limited red-inside-deep purple colored vinyl via Seventh Rule Recordings. Order your copy NOW at THIS LOCATION. For digital orders point your browser HERE.
“This is music to summon a Daemon of the most fucked up kind and we here at The Sludgelord live for such hellish revelry. Their sound is a constant, incessant explosion of noise, of riffs part High On Fire, Black Sabbath and Sonic Youth, thundering drums and a growling bass that rages through your speakers like a cyclone, ravaging everything in its path. How this band can make such a racket is beyond me…” – The Sludgelord
“The five tracks on hand have seriously punked up WIZARD RIFLE‘s attitude while also enhancing the depth of their psychedelic bent. It’s an album seemingly dipping each of its toes in a different genre pool and spinning them all into a homogenous solution that can only be defined by its eclecticism.” – About.com
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