Biography
England's Electric Wizard earned the tag "heaviest band in the universe" by driving detuned guitar tones past previous limits through unmatched doom and stoner metal recordings, all while navigating persistent internal friction alongside their artistic gains. Emerging in 1993, the Dorset-formed occult-sludge outfit issued nine studio albums, among them the landmark efforts Come My Fanatics… (1997) and Dopethrone (2000), and confirmed a tenth and final full-length slated for 2025.
Vocalist and guitarist Justin Oborn, formerly of Lords of Putrefaction, assembled the group in Dorset alongside bassist Tim Bagshaw and drummer Mark Greening; the trio first operated as Thy Grief Eternal and briefly as Eternal. Their initial release, the 1993 split single "Demon Lung" shared with Our Haunted Kingdom (later Orange Goblin), appeared on Rise Above Records, the imprint run by Cathedral's Lee Dorrian. That single cleared the path for the self-titled debut album in 1994, which delivered conventional doom material of its era yet marked a striking entry point.
The 1996 follow-up Come My Fanatics… altered the landscape outright, its planet-sized riffs saturated in volume and distortion that shook the underground metal community. Repercussions soon reached the musicians themselves: Greening sustained a broken arm, Oborn lost a fingertip in a household mishap and later ruptured an eardrum, limiting output over the next three years to the EPs Chrono.Naut (1997) and Supercoven (1998). Alternative accounts pointed to heavy cannabis use or simple inertia, yet all discussion ended with the arrival of 2000's Dopethrone. That record again demonstrated unmatched weight paired with indelible songcraft, spanning doom, sludge, stoner, horror, and occasional space-metal territory so completely that the briskly tracked 2002 successor Let Us Prey registered for many as leftover material. Even so, Let Us Prey advanced the band's international profile while internal relations deteriorated.
Friction peaked during an ill-starred American tour that summer, culminating in a Philadelphia date advertised as the group's farewell performance, a move later revealed as premature promotion. Their subsequent U.K. run supporting Cathedral replaced Greening with former Iron Monkey drummer Justin Greaves and concluded with Bagshaw's exit; Bagshaw soon joined Greening in Ramesses while Oborn paused to regroup. He ultimately resumed with guitarist Liz Buckingham (ex-13 and Sourvein), bassist Rob Al-Issa, and Greaves, delivering the fifth album We Live in 2004. Greaves departed in 2006, succeeded by Shaun Rutter, who appeared on Witchcult Today (2007). Further shifts occurred in 2008 when Al-Issa left and Tas Danazoglou took the bass role, stabilizing the lineup for Black Masses (2010). Another round of changes in 2012 brought Glenn Charman and Simon Poole aboard in place of Danazoglou and Rutter.
Following extensive touring, Oborn and Buckingham initiated further adjustments and recorded at their own facility. Original drummer Mark Greening returned to replace Poole; Charman exited before sessions, leaving Oborn (credited as Count Orloff) to handle bass in the studio. Shortly after completing Time to Die, Greening stepped aside once more for the returning Poole, and the album surfaced in September 2014.
The band then spent nearly three years on the road, rehearsing, and composing before choosing a stripped-down production approach at Satyr IX studio to capture a raw, heavy blend of hard-blues stomp, Detroit garage sleaze, and droning proto-metal and acid rock. Co-produced by Oborn and Buckingham, the sessions aimed to minimize distance between live performance and analog tape. The resulting Wizard Bloody Wizard, issued in November 2017 on Witchfinder/Spinefarm Records, was described by Oborn as "21st century funeral boogie." The single "L.S.D." appeared in 2021 within the psych-horror film Lucifer's Satanic Daughter. Three years afterward the group released Black Magic Rituals & Perversions, Vol.1, a stark live-in-studio rendering of catalog staples. Later that year Oborn stated that the forthcoming tenth studio album would likely serve as the band's final statement.
Vocalist and guitarist Justin Oborn, formerly of Lords of Putrefaction, assembled the group in Dorset alongside bassist Tim Bagshaw and drummer Mark Greening; the trio first operated as Thy Grief Eternal and briefly as Eternal. Their initial release, the 1993 split single "Demon Lung" shared with Our Haunted Kingdom (later Orange Goblin), appeared on Rise Above Records, the imprint run by Cathedral's Lee Dorrian. That single cleared the path for the self-titled debut album in 1994, which delivered conventional doom material of its era yet marked a striking entry point.
The 1996 follow-up Come My Fanatics… altered the landscape outright, its planet-sized riffs saturated in volume and distortion that shook the underground metal community. Repercussions soon reached the musicians themselves: Greening sustained a broken arm, Oborn lost a fingertip in a household mishap and later ruptured an eardrum, limiting output over the next three years to the EPs Chrono.Naut (1997) and Supercoven (1998). Alternative accounts pointed to heavy cannabis use or simple inertia, yet all discussion ended with the arrival of 2000's Dopethrone. That record again demonstrated unmatched weight paired with indelible songcraft, spanning doom, sludge, stoner, horror, and occasional space-metal territory so completely that the briskly tracked 2002 successor Let Us Prey registered for many as leftover material. Even so, Let Us Prey advanced the band's international profile while internal relations deteriorated.
Friction peaked during an ill-starred American tour that summer, culminating in a Philadelphia date advertised as the group's farewell performance, a move later revealed as premature promotion. Their subsequent U.K. run supporting Cathedral replaced Greening with former Iron Monkey drummer Justin Greaves and concluded with Bagshaw's exit; Bagshaw soon joined Greening in Ramesses while Oborn paused to regroup. He ultimately resumed with guitarist Liz Buckingham (ex-13 and Sourvein), bassist Rob Al-Issa, and Greaves, delivering the fifth album We Live in 2004. Greaves departed in 2006, succeeded by Shaun Rutter, who appeared on Witchcult Today (2007). Further shifts occurred in 2008 when Al-Issa left and Tas Danazoglou took the bass role, stabilizing the lineup for Black Masses (2010). Another round of changes in 2012 brought Glenn Charman and Simon Poole aboard in place of Danazoglou and Rutter.
Following extensive touring, Oborn and Buckingham initiated further adjustments and recorded at their own facility. Original drummer Mark Greening returned to replace Poole; Charman exited before sessions, leaving Oborn (credited as Count Orloff) to handle bass in the studio. Shortly after completing Time to Die, Greening stepped aside once more for the returning Poole, and the album surfaced in September 2014.
The band then spent nearly three years on the road, rehearsing, and composing before choosing a stripped-down production approach at Satyr IX studio to capture a raw, heavy blend of hard-blues stomp, Detroit garage sleaze, and droning proto-metal and acid rock. Co-produced by Oborn and Buckingham, the sessions aimed to minimize distance between live performance and analog tape. The resulting Wizard Bloody Wizard, issued in November 2017 on Witchfinder/Spinefarm Records, was described by Oborn as "21st century funeral boogie." The single "L.S.D." appeared in 2021 within the psych-horror film Lucifer's Satanic Daughter. Three years afterward the group released Black Magic Rituals & Perversions, Vol.1, a stark live-in-studio rendering of catalog staples. Later that year Oborn stated that the forthcoming tenth studio album would likely serve as the band's final statement.
Albums
L.S.D.
2021
Wizard Bloody Wizard
2017
Time To Die
2014
Legalise Drugs & Murder
2012
Black Masses
2010
Witchcult Today
2007
We Live
2004
Let Us Prey
2002
Dopethrone
2000
Supercoven
1998
Come My Fanatics...
1996
Electric Wizard
1994
Singles
Live
