| What I have to talk about is the Big Idea. The Big Idea is what separates the strong from the weak, the victor from the vanquished, the eater from the eaten. (If you’re like us, you attribute more power to the latter than the former in each of those cases, but that is a subject for a different day and perhaps even a different site, one funded by banner ads and featuring numerous exit-popups.) Let Us Prey comes very close to embracing its Big Idea, and that’s what makes it great: you can hear the band excitedly but hesitantly circling the vision that they will someday either embrace boldly & irreversibly or lose sight of completely. From the halfway point of the album on, Electric Wizard give off the sense that their Big Idea will momentarily flare out in all its unsparing glory. That they’ve got a Big Idea at all makes them a totally essential band, since most bands don’t even know what a Big Idea is, what to speak of actually trying to channel such a thing. The album is tremendous. But it does not quite yet have full possession of, and it is not quite yet fully possessed by, the Big Idea. |
