The Third Eye

Future Wizards have teamed up with The Zap Archive to bring us a 2-track album called Festival, which saw its release on November 3rd. You may remember The Zap Archive from my review of the Whitebeard album about a month ago, where the drums and bass were taken from this “shadowy group.” The band members chose to be anonymous once again, with the players listed as Beardy on guitars, bassist Nifty, and drummer Speedy.

About Festival

According to the Future Wizards Bandcamp profile, these are:

“2 tracks that originally appeared on Fruits De Mer freebie CDs – one given away at the 14th Dream Of Dr Sardonicus festival of psychedelia held in 2016 and the other on 2018’s ‘A Gathering Of The Fish’”

The band remains anonymous but is referred to here as The Zap Archive.

The music on Festival is a mashup of several genres, with Future Wizards obtaining a loose jam band type of feel while utilizing influences that include psychedelic, acid folk, blues, and much more.

“Orion Gears” is up first and has a runtime of just under fifteen and a half minutes. The intro of this one reminds me of something that I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn do in the Live at the El Mocambo DVD. The focus is on the bass and drums, supplying a subdued sound full of groove, while the guitar adds bluesy notes in sporadic bursts. This lasts for the first third of the song before changing slowly; the speed begins to pick up, and there’s more guitar, but the bass and drums are still running the show. The blues influence increases as the track progresses, particularly in some guitar solo bits.

“The Hoodoo Dial” is the longer of the two songs, almost twenty-one minutes. While the last track reminded me of Stevie Ray, as does this one to a certain extent, “The Hoodoo Dial” pulls in sounds from Stevie’s biggest influence, Jimi Hendrix, particularly in the first section of it. I’m not a Hendrix fan, but I can appreciate what he created and how much of an inspiration he was to some of my guitar heroes. The format and style of this song are very similar to “Orion Gears” but feels more upbeat overall, making it the better of the two.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed the music on this EP, even though both tracks are fairly similar in their presentation, which can be a huge drawback for other bands, but it works quite well on Festival. The musicianship is incredible, especially the bass guitar parts, but all of these guys totally nail their parts. So, head over to the Future Wizards Bandcamp page, and play the album for proof of what I’m talking about. Enjoy!!!

Support Future Wizards by checking out their Bandcamp or find them on YouTube.

This review was written by Tom Hanno, who has been writing reviews for the last 7 years but has been sharing his love of music for the majority of his life. Originally starting out at the now defunct Chimera Magazine, he is currently contributing to Doomed and Stoned, The Sleeping Shaman, The Doom Charts, Tom’s Reviews, and The Third Eye. Read more of Tom’s reviews by checking out his Linktree.