
And if the title of Wizard Bloody Wizard didn't give it away, Electric Wizard have not toned down the Sabbath worship on this album one bit.

As far as consistency goes, they're sort of the Ramones of Sabbath-worshipping doom metal. We'll always miss you, Sharon, and we're grateful for this one last collection of songs.Įlectric Wizard have become one of those bands where you pretty much know exactly what you're getting on each new album, and they always deliver. It proves that, like Bowie and Phife and many others, she was an artist who was taken from us while she was still at the top of her game.
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She sounds full of joy, and her voice is as soaring and commanding as it ever was. If her illness was ever getting her down, it doesn't show on this album. Dap-Kings bassist Bosco Mann, who produced the album, said, "When she was strongest, that’s when we’d go into the studio- Sharon couldn’t phone it in, so we would only work when she was really feeling it." It's even more amazing to hear just how strong Sharon sounds, given the circumstances. Some positive news came when it was revealed that, before she died, Sharon completed what would have been the next Dap-Kings album, and now that album is finally seeing a release. The great soul singer had been singing all her life but only saw a breakthrough in her career when she began working with backing band The Dap-Kings in the 2000s, and she released several acclaimed albums up until losing her battle with pancreatic cancer at age 60. One of the toughest losses that the music world suffered last year was the death of Sharon Jones. As she sings on "No Time For Crying," "Got no time for crying, no time for tears, we've got work to do." She also quotes a Michelle Obama speech on the chorus to "We Go High." And while Mavis has every right to be angry or upset that she's fighting a similar fight to the one she was fighting over half a lifetime ago, she approaches these songs with a sense of hope, like she really feels that if we keep fighting and keep singing songs like this, one day we won't have to anymore.
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The lyrics take on police brutality, the problem with "all lives matter," and on the track that gives this album its powerful title, the notion that a person cannot be defined by skin color.

It may be Tweedy's compositions, but the emotions that are delivered are all Mavis. The album was written and produced by Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, making this the third album they've made together, and the pair work together so naturally at this point. Some hope and feelings of solidarity come from the fact that Mavis herself is not only still around and still making awesome music, but that she's tackling those issues head-first on this year's If All I Was Was Black. Fast forward over half a century to today, where we have a president who is unable to condemn white supremacists and neo-nazis, and it sadly appears that we still need fighters like the ones we had in the '60s. Mavis Staples lived through the civil rights era, and as a member of The Staple Singers, she sang legendary protest songs like "Freedom Highway" as people like Martin Luther King Jr (who was a fan of the group) were fighting for a version of America where everyone was equal, no matter the color of their skin.
