The American heavy metal band White Wizzard, consisting of Jon Leon (guitar, bass), Wyatt ‘Screaming Demon’ Anderson (vocals), James J LaRue (lead guitar, keyboard, orchestration) and Dylan Marks (drums), brought a new album called ‘Infernal Overdrive’ in the beginning of this year. The cover shows us a devilish car, according to the license plate and the pins on the dashboard. It’s not clear to me what kind of creature is driving the car, but I assume it might be the white wizzard. When you take a look in the booklet, you’ll see the songs are depicted as in a comic. On the back you see the photos of the band members live in action.
‘Infernal Overdrive’ starts on the right foot with the title track. Wyatt proves immediately that he hasn’t stolen his nickname ‘Screaming Demon‘. Don’t worry, he’s not screaming all the time, he varies them with a little rough vocals and everything in between. The great guitar work is also remarkable from the beginning by nice guitar duets in the bridge of this song, which will come back in other songs on this album. The vibe ‘Infernal Overdrive’ creates continues in the second song ‘Storm The Shores’.
With the third song White Wizzard proves they wanted to bring a varied album. ‘Pretty May’ starts a bit like a folk metal song and makes me want to dance without losing their own style. After that, the band adds more drama with the songs ‘Chasing Dragons’ and ‘Voyage Of The Wolf Raiders’.
After the drama White Wizzard brings back the atmosphere from the beginning of the album to follow with some sadness afterwards in the last songs and eventually the album ends with a calm song called ‘The Illusion’s Tears’. Which doesn’t bring a happy ending looking at the title and hearing the sadness and drama in the song. In this last song Wyatt‘s vocals sound very clear in comparison with the other songs.
There’s no doubt that the emphasis on White Wizzard‘s album is on the strong vocals and great guitar work. ‘Infernal Overdrive’ is a varied album wherein the changes in atmosphere clearly tells a story when you listen to it.
Release date: January 12th, 2018
Label: M-Theory Audio
Tracklist:
1. Infernal Overdrive
2. Storm The Shores
3. Pretty May
4. Casing Dragons
5. Voyage Of the Wolf Raiders
6. Critical Mass
7. Cocoon
8. Metamorphosis
9. The Illusion’s Tears
