It takes youthful exuberance and unbridled passion to brashly re-animate the headier advances of rock music and the young guns of Wizard Rose have tapped into the great melting pot of rock’s deep history to create their debut self-titled album that resounds with great vitality, tunefulness, and attitude.

The Big Takeover is stoked to host the album premiere of the heavily rockin’Wizard Rose on its release date of May 17th.

Hailing from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia, Wizard Rose are a musical force that belies their obvious youth to produce a sound that harks back to – without emulating – the era that gave birth to such bands as Led Zeppelin, Velvet Underground, and Rush.

Formed in 2018 by their guitarist, James Elves, the group consists of James Elves on guitar, lead vocalist Lucas Blackburn, bassist Zaac Thompson, and drummer Isaac Varcoe. Wizard Rose began to play music in a self-built rehearsal room in North Brisbane on July 12th, 2018. The ragged, but enthusiastic crew begun extensive rehearsals over an 8-month period to write, craft, and perfect their music.

Their sound is as much their own as it is a musical homage to the greats of rock lore, with a daring and impulse that transgresses rock’s evolution. To the truly gifted, music is in their blood and the four young men that form Wizard Rose breathe their art. Lead single “Forbidden Thing” leaves their unchecked collective energies all on the track that entails up-tempo progressions and dominant, driving forces. “Forbidden Thing” has become quite a fan favorite and is requested often.

Gritty and spinning album-opener “Black Knight” features acrobatic guitar work, a running bass line, and pounded out drum beats backed by hard-struck cymbals. “Tea Among Friends” goes the acoustic rock route, with vocal contemplation and mellifluous guitar lines. Mid-tempo rocker “Left of Heaven” pushes forward determinedly, moving from calmer lulls to to more urgent, drawn out exclamations.

“Save The Queen” kicks out the jams with a weighty bottom end, gritty guitar jags, and rough cries to the sky. The sharp guitar grind continues on next number “The Shepard” that whirls with a restless pace and menacing vocals. A lighter vocal delivery and strummed guitars feature on “Song For The Promised Land” with a ruminative Blackburn revealing, “I’m talking to fill the silence.”

Driving, pulse-pounding closer “Wizard Rose” electrifies with plugged-in guitar turmoil, rubbery bass line rumble, David Lee Roth-like yowls and vocal looseness, and fast-pummeled drums and cymbals strikes. It perfectly captures the essence of ’70s/‘80s hard rock – all raucous, (a)rousing aggression and defiance in the name of lust.

As surprising as it is inescapable, Wizard Rose’s self-titled album exposes a resounding love for the flexibility and complexity of being a die-hard rocker in love with the carnal and the ephemeral; driven and hungry, but also lost in the mystical, gentle, and reflective.

James Elves divulges, “It’s been but one journey of many, and to create all that we have, to do it with souls that I’m grateful to call brothers is a blessing indeed. This album is many feelings and inner emotions expressed and directed through the instruments and music created.”

Wizard Rose will play The Flying Cock in Brisbane on May 17th.

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