Album of the day: Witchcraft – S/T (Rise Above Records 2004)

(From our archives): Witchcraft S/T should be emblazoned with a HUGE health-warning sticker, as should you, the listener suffer from motion sickness… BE WARNED!!! As the speed with which this blissfully anachronistic heavy rock album sucks you down, a delirious time tunnel would warp the mind of H.G Wells himself.

Fabulous Furry freak Brothers!!! Forget about bellbottom jeans man, this is flared music for the turned on brothers and sisters, like, far freaking out! I’m not too sure how prevalent freak flags are these days but after a few spins of Witchcraft “S/T” one feels compelled to locate one and fly the damn thing sky high, onus on the high.

I thought I was prepared for this album from the various other reviews I had read, but like the first dog they shot into space I was misinformed about the simplicity of the exercise! After the first listen I was totally spun out (not an unpleasant sensation I must add).

When people say doom I immediately think of big granite riffs wide enough to parade elephants on, while this CD has far more in common with the loose-knit progressive vibe-outs of heavier 70’s hemp rockers, Tull, Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep rather than Iommi’s deathblues. It’s folksier and laidback rather than bombastic, and the music is far more spacious and ambient with none of the fearful roar of bands like Las Cruces or Warhorse etc.

The general consensus which is impossible not to share are the fan-boy Pentagram shadings on this album, as the songs that do lumber off into the darker woods of proto-doom are indelibly branded by the spectre of Bobby Liebling, right down to Magnus Pelander’s eerie evocation of Lieblings’ ghoulish crooning. One track that does pack some authentic doom tonnage is ‘Her Sisters They Were Weak’ (stone cold classic mate).

Is this album any good though? Yes it is, very, very good but it is not an immediate listen, like many of the gatefold albums of the 1970’s it needs to be appreciated in it’s entirety with several attentive sittings, eventually Witchcraft’s spooky ganja grooves settle on you like lysergic moss, and the cumulative hit is elegiac, potent and all rock.

In some households this album is bound to cause much confusion as should a parent from the Woodstock era walk past their child’s bedroom room and get a righteous hit of Witchcraft S/T they are liable to have a kaleidoscopic flashback, and then furiously question the release date of this album, as 2004 is clearly a fraudulent claim.

Rise Above Records have contrived a successful way to market a long forgotten progressive doom rock band whose dusty master tapes have only recently been unearthed and released in their warm, fuzzily beguiling, analogue glory. Witchcraft are not a retro rock act, they are a living, breathing sonic immersion tank, one that you can submerge yourself in and bliss out in at your leisure.

Album highlights are: ‘Her Sisters They Were Weak’, flute’s and millstone heavy guitars intermingle to create a gloriously heady doom-laden anthem. Other memorable tracks include: ‘Witchcraft’, ‘The Snake’, ‘What I Am , ‘No  Angel or Demon’ and ‘You Bury Your Head.’

Tune in, turn up and bong out (If you will excuse the crass pun this truly is a bewitching album).
Jason De L’orme

(Please click here for the on demand audio stream of Witchcraft live at Roadburn 2008)

Tags: album of the day, doom, rise above records, witchcraft

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