Book of Wyrms are back, and they sound meaner for it. The US heavy psych outfit has dropped “Slime Fever,” the first transmission from a forthcoming album, and it arrives faster, dirtier, and more locked-in than anything I’ve heard from this band before.
Formed in 2014 out of a shared love for Hawkwind and ZZ Top, the Richmond, Virginia-based Book of Wyrms have spent the years since logging serious hours jamming somewhere out past the asteroid belt. They’re a four-piece built on heavy riffs, psychedelic haze, and a motor that never quite stops running. They’ve built a steady reputation in the US underground doing exactly that, and “Slime Fever” feels like a band stepping on the gas.
A lot of that comes down to new drummer Brian Wiltz, whose arrival has knocked the songwriting into a sharper, more direct gear. The riffs hit harder, and the songs don’t wander. But Wiltz, who comes from outside the traditional heavy-music world, also knows exactly when to pull back. He’s not just bashing through every section at full throttle. He reads the song, leaves room for restraint, and then detonates exactly when the moment calls for it. That push-and-pull is most of what makes “Slime Fever” work.
The other big shift: for the first time, Book of Wyrms handed the mix to someone outside the band. Enter Rob Wrong (Wrong Way Recording, Witch Mountain), who opened the whole thing up. Wrong was reportedly working from reference points like Dio’s “Last in Line” and Judas Priest’s Turbo, and you can hear it. The track has that gleaming, high-stakes ’80s metal sheen without losing the band’s cosmic muck underneath.
Stylistically, the Rainbow/Hawkwind/Monster Magnet DNA is still very much intact, but the band has clearly been digging into Priest, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, Queen, and Motörhead, and it shows. This isn’t a band chasing nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. It’s a band stealing the parts of those records built for movement, for forward motion, for the neck-snap. By their own account, anything that didn’t hit immediately got cut, and that ruthlessness is audible. There’s no fat on this thing.
Can’t wait to hear where the rest of the album takes it.
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