These guys probably were hatched from dragon eggs in the Northern Rivers, New South Wales, after a wizard cast a spell to generate their existence. “Couch Wizard” have brought out their EP, “Fear” featuring 4 songs with a total run time of 22:25.
Couch Wizard is a four-piece band with their sound skirting around stoner doom metal, weaving in some deep southern rock and blues in their groove. Their efforts are there to cast a spell over you, “painting mystical scenes of smoky mountains and volcanic fury” in your mind.
The album cover has the colours of some sort of heat map. The oddity is the inanimate object representing the heat is hotter than people off to either side. Are they dead? Or some sort of magical being that can hide in the shadows? With the whole scene seemingly scratched out like a crack in a screen, it certainly gives an ominous feel to the cover.
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However, once you start playing the album, you either follow along enchanted with their beliefs or you just feel uplifted, not caring much for the world. Either way, the music will take you from the first few bars. As they say they will be “healing the land through collective hands from the shadows. ”
Apart from the last song, their deep crunch groove comes to the fore. The tracks could seemingly go on forever if they wanted to as the first few tracks are a little over 6 minutes but have enough of style to carry on longer. Though there is repetition in the beats and the rhythms in the song, they vibe up the playing to keep things fresh. A solo here and there, colours in the gaps.
Soon after the first song shows its might, we encounter the soaring vocals. They almost seem to take inspiration from the spirits of the dream world carried on a pair of wings of brightly coloured carrion-eating birds.
Hobo Magic and Heavy Trip are said to be influenced, and you can hear this reflected in their southern crunch style mixed in with some other influences. The intro to “Fear Economy” is catchy and interesting but maintains a certain simplicity. It then kicks into a groovy ethereal tale. There are a varied amount of styles and music paces throughout the song that gives it a tasty flavour. Layers are added to their songs rather than just going for the straightforward song structures we typically have.
The songs have been pieced together well with layers. The tonality of guitars carries that muddied grit you need to compliment the style and makes you reminiscent of an album from back in the early days of the style coming to the fore. Perhaps the technicality of the music could add more as they have kept the majority more towards a simple groove sound with catchy riffs.
While the first 3 songs take us on a stoner metal journey, the last song is the outlier and expresses some of their other roots. If you are looking for a song that stems more from the Doors, and country rock, then that’ll be what you are up for.
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When you get to this song, it feels like you are now going on a journey through some sort of psychedelic forest that is quite different from bashing through the open stoner doom field you’ve been through. It lacks the punch of crunch from the songs prior to it, and because it takes you on a train on a different track, does it fit on a short album like this?
They have put out an album that deserves to be listened to and enjoyed.
Tracklist:
- Fear Awakens
- Fear Economy
- E.B.
- Forum of Fear
Couch Wizard: Facebook
Release Year: 2023
Label: self-released
Category: EP
Country: Australia
Reviewed by Byron Lotz