Electric Wizard began in Wimborne in Dorset, England during 1993, and was composed of guitarist-vocalist Jus Oborn, bassist Tim Bagshaw, and drummer Mark Greening.

Taking up the torch from doom pioneers like Saint Vitus, Sleep, and more recently Britain's own Cathedral, the eternally stoned-out trio went about setting a new standard for slothful, detuned heavy metal noisemaking; yet -- amazingly, compared to subsequent efforts -- their eponymous debut's crushing wall of sludge would soon seem almost lightweight.

Most of the songs on Electric Wizard crawl along at a snail's pace, their mind-numbing riffs exploring the lowest imaginable sonic frequencies still within human range.

Except for the trippy space rock guitar of "Mountains of Mars," the entire record revels in the purest, uncompromising post-Sabbath doom metal dirge, a great part of which may prove too sluggish and impenetrable for inexperienced listeners.

But for knowledgeable consumers of the genre, weed-worshipping anthems like "Stone Magnet," "Devil's Bride," and the group's awesome namesake, "Electric Wizard" (which is introduced by a long, highly suspicious exhaled breath), amount to a mind-shattering experience...prepare to be enlightened.