{"id":17449,"date":"2018-01-01T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T06:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17449"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:49:22","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:49:22","slug":"album-review-white-wizzard-infernal-overdrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17449","title":{"rendered":"Album Review &#8211; White Wizzard &#8211; Infernal Overdrive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So yeah, a new White Wizzard album.\u00a0 From what I have seen, this news made about as much impact as their miserably failed \u00be High Speed GTO era reunion at Frost and Fire in 2016.\u00a0 The big deal surrounding Infernal Overdrive is that this album marks the return of original guitarist James J. LaRue and fan favorite vocalist Wyatt \u201cScreamin\u2019 Demon\u201d Anderson.\u00a0 Before going into this album, I promised myself that I would keep an open mind.\u00a0 While I have been sadly underwhelmed by the band\u2019s output since their masterpiece Over the Top, I just felt like I had to give this thing an honest listen.<\/p>\n<p>Right out the gates, the opening title track just left me scratching my head.\u00a0 Tsk, tsk, tsk, Jon Leon.\u00a0 If you are going to open up your album with a song that is a subpar song that borders on plagiarism, you might as well just admit that you are creatively and artistically bankrupt.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even going to say what song it ripped off because the minute you hear it you will know it right away.\u00a0 Ok, it&#8217;s &#8220;Painkiller&#8221; by Judas Priest. Anyway, from there, I hoped that this album would get better and honestly, I really wanted it to but sadly, my wish went un-granted as I was pummeled song after song full of predictable music, solos that just seemed to be there for sake of having a solo with no connection to the song, and horrible lyrics.\u00a0 \u201cLost in you I\u2019m chasing dragons in my mind.\u00a0 Searching for the final rhyme.\u00a0 Drunk on love\u2019s poison wine. \u201c\u00a0 Yes, that\u2019s an actual lyric.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5_cBpFRpo3I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" gesture=\"media\" allow=\"encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Infernal Overdrive is initially just another White Wizzard album that I find to be unlistenable and not even remotely interesting.\u00a0 Maybe things would have been better if Jon could\u2019ve kept a consistent lineup starting with the Over the Top lineup.\u00a0 That band had a chemistry and connection to the songs and you could tell they were ready to take on the world but they crumbled before my very eyes and were replaced by various cherry picked musicians which made it hard to maintain any level of consistency.\u00a0 Maybe that would also explain the decline in Jon Leon\u2019s songwriting.\u00a0 Without a solid band of brothers behind you, it\u2019s hard to find that inspiration.\u00a0 Hell, even Wyatt has been quoted as saying, \u201cThe only reason I came back to White Wizzard is because the fans wanted me.\u201d\u00a0 This is coming from someone who publically expressed his disdain for Jon Leon.\u00a0 Yeah, that would make anyone feel uninspired.\u00a0 You can also just default to a two word review: Shite Wizzard<\/p>\n<p>White Wizzard\u2019s chance was here, it was grabbed, and it was lost a long time ago.\u00a0 At this point, Infernal Overdrive is a man grasping at straws.\u00a0 If I had to describe this album in a nut shell I would have to say this:\u00a0 Imagine that you get two really amazing architects (James LaRue and Wyatt Anderson) who are true masters who are great at what they do.\u00a0 You hire them to build the shittiest, ugliest fucking building you can imagine and they do it.\u00a0 Then the guy who designed this monstrosity steps back and says, &#8220;This is the best building I\u2019ve ever designed&#8221; while everyone just stares and says, &#8220;Hmmm.\u201d\u00a0 The sad thing is that, much like this scenario, these great architects will forever have their names affixed to a massively subpar product.\u00a0 That, my friends, is the hugest tragedy of it all.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So yeah, a new White Wizzard album.\u00a0 From what I have seen, this news made about as much impact as their miserably failed \u00be High Speed GTO era reunion at Frost and Fire in 2016.\u00a0 The big deal surrounding Infernal Overdrive is that this album marks the return of original guitarist James J. LaRue and fan favorite vocalist Wyatt \u201cScreamin\u2019 Demon\u201d Anderson.\u00a0 Before going into this album, I promised myself that I would keep an open mind.\u00a0 While I have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[844,672,458,629],"class_list":["post-17449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-james-larue","tag-jon-leon","tag-white-wizzard","tag-wyatt-anderson"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19643,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17449\/revisions\/19643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}