Porto trio The Black Wizards make garage rock with a political edge and a sharp sense of humour - the kind of band who name their fourth album âForce Majeure & The Acts Of Godâ after the legal term for uncontrollable circumstances and mean it as both a piss-take and a statement.
Theyâve been at it since the early 2010s, building a devoted following in northern Portugalâs independent rock scene, and having spent the years since their last record shedding a stoner-rock tag that never quite fit. What replaced it is less fuzzadelic and more chaotic.
New single âWishing Wellâ barrels forward with frantic proto-punk energy, opening on cascading guitar riffs that spiral and tumble, breaking loose into a freewheeling guitar solo before descending into a bouncing, heavy-footed stomp for the songâs final stretch.
That momentum mirrors the cycle at the heart of the song: the exhausting process of battling the things we can never quite escape. âEveryone has their own demons, their own battles - that perfect inconvenience that leaves you so angry and exhausted you wish you could rip it out of your headâ, says guitarist and vocalist Joana Brito.
The new track, she adds, âcaptures the endless cycle of finding the strength to face it, fight it, fall, rise, fall again, and keep starting over, again and againâ.
The aforementioned âForce Majeure & The Acts of Godâ follows on 4 Sep recorded in five chaotic days in Porto after the original Sweden sessions fell through - with a health emergency, a producer flying from Chicago, reel-to-reel machines that broke down on arrival - and if âWishing Wellâ is anything to go by, all the better for it.
đ§ Listen to âWishing Wellâ below