PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Ten Foot Wizard initially formed in Manchester, England as a side-project by members of ‘Bisonhammer’ in 2009. Since then the band have played just a handful of gigs each year but have garnered a reputation for putting on an incendiary live show, recently supporting Karma to Burn, Witch Mountain and Sacred Mother Tongue.
The band play their own brand of heavy blues rock that owes as much too classic bands such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin as to more modern bands such as Clutch, Queens of the Stone Age and Fu Manchu.
‘Return to the Infinite’ is their debut album and is full of 3 – 5 minute bluesy hard rock songs, with a stoner edge to them. There are also some longer tracks, indeed the title track is over nine minutes long. This however sound’s more like a jam session than a track, as the song doesn’t really go anywhere and is very repetitive. This seems to be a problem repeated with the longer tracks on offer here, the structure for the three minute song’s are great, sounding a lot like Clutch, however it is when the band strike out and try to make a mark for themselves that they appear to come unstuck.
Don’t get me wrong, I like this album, I like the tasty groove-heavy riffs from Adam, I like the gritty loud vox of Gary, and the pounding rhythm section of Jonny and Seddy.
‘Rise From Your Grave’ is the opening track, all thunderous riffs and a penetrating groove.
‘Vulture Bitches’ is a great track clocking in at five minutes, the optimum time for a Ten Foot Wizard song I feel, for now.
‘Six Feet Rising’ is the first of the long players, and while it starts off promising, it soon starts to get repetitive music wise, only Gary manages to save it from being totally forgetful.
All is not lost however, as ‘Fuck’ comes along to save the day, a badass slice of stoner rock, the best track on this album.
This is a great debut album, only let down by a couple of very overlong tracks. I would still recommend it though.
The band is in the studio shortly to record their 2nd opus, and I am already looking forward to it. I am pretty confident they will leave the Clutch sound behind and let TFW shine through, as they have a lot of potential.
All the tracks can be heard on the website tenfootwizard.bandcamp.com/
