Bad Wizard

Free and Easy (Tee Pee)
by Brian Varney

Judging by the album’s wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am pacing (nine songs, 27 minutes) and a gut feeling, I’d say these guys are old punk rockers who decided to make a rock record. So it should come as no surprise, that they sound like a cross between Motörhead and AC/DC. Not that I’m complaining, see… Indeed, this time-honored formula has resulted in many a great band (most recently, Columbus’s late, lamented Bob City) and, also, many a flash in the pan.

This seemingly simple formula is both a recipe for success and a recipe for disaster. When a band works with such basic ingredients, there are a few absolutely key ingredients, the most important of which are attack and songs. If you’ve got ’em both, you’re flyin’. If you lack one or the other, you’re dyin’. Bad Wizard have attack to spare. They know their Motörhead but good, and they unrelenting beat the shit out of their instruments for every second of Free and Easy. And the singer, who sounds like a strangled cross between Lemmy and Rob Tyner, is right there, shouting at the top of his lungs along with them. If you’re looking for anything resembling mid-tempo or slow, you’d best look elsewhere, bucky.

The song thing is not quite so easy to judge. Overall, the album is a bit light on solid tunes, but there are flashes of promise. If they can write a few more songs like “Natural High,” rock bands everywhere had better watch their butts.
(PO Box 20307 New York, NY 10009)