ninehertz

You’ll know the idiom “never judge a book by its cover”. But you may not know the unabridged version, which states “never judge a book by its cover, unless it’s a band called something like Bong Wizard and then its entirely reasonable to presume they’ll be on the sludge/doom axis and have a weed obsession”.

Out of Houston, Bong Wizard don’t defy this age-old rule, but they bring a lot of enjoyment whilst meeting all expectations. Confirmation arrives early on the opening Bongblåst, whose first lyrical words sung are “The embers glow as the toke cascades, Inhale the green, let your mind erase”. I say sung but it’s a strange strangled hoarse old thing, a little like (appropriately enough) Bongzilla. It is mega-slow, it is riff-dominant and it is heavy. It is sludge here for a good time.

From there it trundles along and you wonder if it’ll be a decent but uninspired sludge record. But it blooms out of that torpid state in its mid to latter sections, bringing elements of doom and stoner rock to provide variance and changes in tempo and mood. Inno a Sativa feels a little Electric Wizard styled occult doom in its grand dark opening moments, but gratefully not in thrall to that sound. It hangs around a big loping riff which benefits from repetition and some ethereal backing vocals.

Best of all is the title track Transylvanian Munchies, echoing the Darkthrone bating album artwork, whose deceptively sludge line is layered patiently and with a heady atmosphere, a grandness akin to the more progressive minded sludge acts. It is in these moments where this album flourishes, giving Bong Wizard an identity beyond the tropes they have stashed themselves within.