ALBUM REVIEW: Dealers Of Divinity – White Magician

Hailing from the ‘Rock City’ Detroit itself, WHITE MAGICIAN set out to revive the classic 70s hard rock and metal sound with a mystical aesthetic on their debut album Dealers Of Divinity. Chock full of duelling leads, labyrinthine song structures and galloping drums, it’s an album that apes the class BLUE ÖYSTER CULT more than a little with a flair for the melodramatic not dissimilar to GHOST, albeit with less of a reliance on keys.

The album’s concept is captured in its art, depicting three blind card dealers playing a game that decides the fate of all humanity and laughing at the concept of free will. The question they seek to pose is – do we accept this or fight to carve out our own destiny? Across a sprawling seven songs and fifty minutes, WHITE MAGICIAN seek to both ask and prompt answers, or consideration of an answer, to this question.

Opening with its title track that clocks in at a hefty seven minutes, Dealers Of Divinity makes itself known with an ambient intro that soon picks up the pace. The galloping rhythms and drumming underpin the song, keeping things moving at pace despite the length. Its chorus is a particular high point with its grandiose, syncopated melody and extra woodblock percussion. The album features ripping guitar solos aplenty and off-kilter leads such as the opening of Mad Magic II: In the Absence of Gods (Bad Magic) – though the name is a little obnoxious in length and obscurity. The band deploy vocal and guitar hooks deftly such as on the aforementioned track and across the album as a whole. 

It’s not all quite straightforward 70s rocking though; third track Fading into the Obscurity of Ages is a flamenco-inspired interlude that, while great fun initially, overstays its welcome even at a little over four minutes. It simply doesn’t do enough to warrant even that length. Sadly this is a recurring theme that holds WHITE MAGICIAN back. There’s often plenty of good ideas and songs have plenty of groove, duelling guitars and huge vocal hooks but there’s also a criminal lack of self-editing here. Songs frequently noodle around longer than is necessary – even the opening song does this towards the end, leaving a ripping solo behind for a repetitive motif that evolves far less than it needs to. Closer Spectre of a Dying Flame also does nowhere near enough to justify its eight minute length. 

There’s enough ideas on Dealers Of Divinity for a solid, shorter, record here but the band drag it out to a torturous fifty minutes which sadly drags down the rest of the record. The musicianship is by no means bad and there’s a lot to like here, especially for fans of classic metal and that 70s sound. Without some serious editing or better development of their ideas to justify the song lengths, though, WHITE MAGICIAN are going to need some seriously powerful magic to conjure the success this album hints at. 

Rating: 5/10

Dealers Of Divinity is out now via Cruz Del Sur Music.

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