THE BLACK WIZARDS share new single "Wishing Well" from new album ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’, out Sept 4th on Hassle

THE BLACK WIZARDS - Share new single "Wishing Well" - 'Force Majeure & The Acts of God'   album out Sept 4th on Hassle Records

Photo credit: Luis Moreira   Today, The Black Wizards share a new track, "Wishing Well", taken from their forthcoming new album ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’, set for release on September 4th via Hassle Records.    ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ is named after the legal phrase used to describe uncontrollable circumstances, reflecting both the chaotic conditions surrounding the record’s creation and a sense of dark humour and defiance that runs through the album's ten tracks.   The Porto-based trio follow the garage rock swagger and bluesy stomp of “Loose” and dead-pan humour of “Killing The Buzz” with new single "Wishing Well". “Wishing Well” 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 song's final stretch. That restless momentum mirrors the cycle at the heart of the song: the exhausting process of battling the things we can never quite escape. As Joana Brito explains: “Everyone 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 head. ‘Wishing Well’ captures the endless cycle of finding the strength to face it, fight it, fall, rise, fall again, and keep starting over, again and again.” "Wishing Well” official video: https://youtu.be/AVdArIOhKMQ Other ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ links: http://blackwizards.ffm.to/force-majeure   The Porto-based trio of Joana Brito (guitar/vocals), José Gomes (bass/vocals) and Helena Peixoto (drums) present their fourth album and their first since 2019’s ‘Reflections’, marking a decisive break from their past. The doomy haze and sprawling stoner-rock tag that once followed the band has been stripped back in favour of something sharper and more poised, deftly traversing a wider sonic palette. These songs don’t lumber forward so much as lunge. There’s something knowingly tongue-in-cheek about a band called The Black Wizards naming their album after bureaucratic disaster terminology. That tension between absurdity and confrontation runs throughout the record itself: funny, sharp, politically charged and constantly pushing forward. Written as political landscapes across the world spiral into disarray, ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ channels frustration and urgency without ever sinking into hopelessness. “The world is going the way that if you finish writing a song about something that deeply touches you, by the next day there is new shit happening,” says José. While compiling lyrics for the record, front-woman Joana Brito had been reading books on politics, gender and toxic masculinity, including Grayson Perry’s The Descent of Man, and those ideas bleed through songs that take aim at hollow leadership, social tribalism and the performance of power. Recent single “Killing The Buzz”, released earlier this year on 7” single, in particular cuts through the noise with a sharp sense of humour, mocking political spectacle while refusing to surrender to it. The recording process itself became its own exercise in chaos management. The band had originally planned to record in Sweden with Cooper Crain of CAVE and Bitchin Bajas, but after a sudden health emergency forced them to abandon the sessions and return to Portugal, they improvised. Instead, Crain flew from Chicago to Porto, where the band cut ten songs in just five intense days at Arda Recorders. Long hours, barely any breaks, constant pressure. They initially planned to record to tape, with Crain even flying over with reel-to-reel machines from the US, before technical problems forced a last-minute pivot to digital recording. Still, the urgency works in the album’s favour. Nothing here feels overly polished or ironed flat. The rough edges remain intact, giving the record a volatile energy that mirrors the instability that inspired it. “It’s kinda nice to see imperfections these days when everything evolves into AI-based,” says Brito. For all its anger, though, ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ is ultimately driven by connection rather than nihilism. Long embedded within northern Portugal’s fiercely independent rock community, The Black Wizards remain committed to collaboration, grassroots creativity and building spaces for outsiders like themselves. “We want to encourage kids to get off their smartphones and pick up a guitar, paint, or just be creative,” says Brito. “We want to make the world a safer place for all the freaks like us.” In the face of chaos, The Black Wizards choose movement, noise and each other. There’s magic in that. The Black Wizards live dates: 30 July - Guimarães, PT - L'Agosto Festival 7 August - Madrid, ES - Wurlitzer Ballroom 8 August - Benalua, ES - BenaRock Festival 2 October - Karlsruhe, DE - PsyKA Festival 3 October - Pratteln, CH - Up in Smoke Festival 3 February - Porto, PT - Mouco * 4 February - Lisbon, PT - República da Música * 5 February - Madrid, ES - Copernico * 6 February - Barcelona, ES - Wolf * * w/SLIFT ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ track list: 1. Ain't Talking 2. Loose - video 3. Killing The Buzz - video 4. 9 to 5 5. Beat 6. Wishing Well - stream 7. Ain't Joking 8. Caffeine 9. Elevator 15 10. Astrophile ‘Force Majeure & The Acts of God’ album artwork by Braulio Amado  Links: Bandcamp | Instagram