Wizzard Brew - WIZZARD***

You Can Dance The Rock & Roll/Meet Me At The Jailhouse/Jolly Cup Of Tea/Buffalo Station-Get On Down To Memphis/Gotta Crush (About You)/Wear A Fast Gun

After a short spell in ELO the former Move vocalist Roy Wood launched the new glam-rock group Wizzard. They quickly made their mark, with no fewer than four hit singles reaching the higher reaches of the UK singles chart in 1973, none of which appear on the debut album Wizzard Brew. (UK:29)

“I was surprised at how ridiculously heavy this gets. It is so aggressive at times that it's almost overwhelming, between the crushing guitar, deliberate noise and smatterings of free jazz.”

“This is glam rock at its artiest, noisiest, most psychedelic and, I suppose it goes without saying, most pretentious. It's an exhausting album, one most won't make it through, as any pop moments are fleeting or summarily brutalized by free jazz sax and waves of psychedelic sludge.”

“It's not fine work at all - the arrangements are towering chaotic heaps, with myriad instruments competing for the listener's attention - but then this is Roy Wood at his most unapologetic. Each track is different, but an air of decadent excess pervades throughout. It's hard to describe. The individual musicians are all highly proficient, but the conductor seems to have left the room.”

“It still sounds like nothing else before or since – this is the other extreme to the whimsy of Roy Wood’s solo Boulders album, with thunderous, almost cacophonic riffs and a few other diverse elements thrown in for good measure. Taken as a whole, you probably have to be a fan to get the full benefit of this album.”

“Wizzard Brew begins with a massive drum attack and there is a heavy stress on the brass throughout the entire album. Meet Me At The Jailhouse is mostly a duel between two saxophones. All the instruments, as well as the vocals, sound at the extreme limits of their possibilities, so the album gives an impression that it is the overture to the end of the world.”

“You want it, you name it, it is on this album. Much too convoluted for me and way too many horns. Basically, just a cacophony of noise.”

“The whole album is just crazed - even the Elvis pastiche Gotta Crush (About You) rambles around, covered in multiple layers of vocals, guitars, brass and piano.”