Witchcraft
Nucleus
Nuclear Blast
2016
Witchcraft, the band famous for canceling gigs without proper reason and without giving promoters back their money, releases their fifth album their second I believe on Nuclear blast, after being for too long in the stables of “Rise Above”. Following the rather uneasy rift between the guitarist/singer Magnus Pelander and the rest of the band reduced now from a quintet to a trio. The style is slower, more based on heavy pulsating riffing, a bit more “electric wizard” if you wish, as opposed to whatever the band did in the “Legend” with some of it carrying over here but not much… whereas, previously things either more “stoner” – least of all not this in your face and sort of grungy…
“Malstroem” begins with some nice acoustic passage, only to try and deliver a Sabbath like gloom, but coming across like a more boring version of Pentagram, among other things…
“Theory of Consequence” thickens and phattens the riffs that become more buzzsaw-fuzzy-noisy for a trip to the 70s with the mix also dipping in quality.
The “Outcast” selected as a single, wisely enough is much cleaner, melancholic and “borrows” a lick or two from some German Hard Rock of the 70s, but it’s really nice…
“Nucleus” is some fourteen minutes long and while it’s soft psych intro and some ideas are vaguely reminiscent of The Doors (which it seems to name check among others) it twists into a much heavier and more dazed and 70s heavy rock sort of tune, before wind instruments unwind the tension generated by an early crescendo at around the sixth minute… the song meanders “mystically” for a few minutes, until a simplistic lead is mixed over various chants in the background that go on and on until the very end with Magnus mimicking the chant towards the end. It’s a song that’s decent and the whole chant idea isn’t half as bad, but the execution is sort of clumsy at best, from not being able to keep on the notes he’s supposed to hit, which aren’t too challenging to begin with to the fact that the whole think could have been a lot more compact without losing any of its potential appeal…
“An Exorcism of Doubts” initially tries to channel some blues rock, then it gets “rocking” for a minute and goes back and for the between the two ends, in an undecided, but interesting way.
“The Obsessed” sounds a bit like The Obsessed but shittier and fuzzier…
“To Transcend Bitterness” is quite a nice tune, because it has some interesting dynamics and visits both end of the aural spectrum, it’s just that Pelander is not “that” a capable singer… surely he’s passionate, but his voice crackles here and there…
Initially I thought “Helpless” was instrumental, as it’s a mostly mellow instrumental till the middle, when some verse “happens” and this happens once more, in something that sounds more like a decent idea for a part of a song rather than a proper song… the abrupt end is also evident of the fact that this is more of a jam that ended up in there, rather than a conscious attempt at writing a song.
“Breakdown” is a maudlin of a track with almost seven minutes of the same guitar motif and some “weepy” vocals that are interrupted by a spoken part before another simple and primal riff gets repeated for another five or six minutes with some more “teary/passionate” vocals and then it all goes artsy with some cello and some choir type of thing that make it sound outworldly and psych. Certainly a stretch for something that lasts sixteen minutes and a sign of laziness or dysfunction.
Lastly, “Chasing Rainbows” returns to a semblance of normality. It’s a poorly sung 70s heavy rock hymn that seems to send up in thick smokey circles a multitude of influences to close the album decently.
Obviously this will be promoted as “a masterpiece” but it’s a largely uneven attempt, by a continuation of a band by a single member, in ways that might stay somewhat canonical, but also seem to be at the very least dubious as to their effectiveness and potential future.
“Malstroem” begins with some nice acoustic passage, only to try and deliver a Sabbath like gloom, but coming across like a more boring version of Pentagram, among other things…
“Theory of Consequence” thickens and phattens the riffs that become more buzzsaw-fuzzy-noisy for a trip to the 70s with the mix also dipping in quality.
The “Outcast” selected as a single, wisely enough is much cleaner, melancholic and “borrows” a lick or two from some German Hard Rock of the 70s, but it’s really nice…
“Nucleus” is some fourteen minutes long and while it’s soft psych intro and some ideas are vaguely reminiscent of The Doors (which it seems to name check among others) it twists into a much heavier and more dazed and 70s heavy rock sort of tune, before wind instruments unwind the tension generated by an early crescendo at around the sixth minute… the song meanders “mystically” for a few minutes, until a simplistic lead is mixed over various chants in the background that go on and on until the very end with Magnus mimicking the chant towards the end. It’s a song that’s decent and the whole chant idea isn’t half as bad, but the execution is sort of clumsy at best, from not being able to keep on the notes he’s supposed to hit, which aren’t too challenging to begin with to the fact that the whole think could have been a lot more compact without losing any of its potential appeal…
“An Exorcism of Doubts” initially tries to channel some blues rock, then it gets “rocking” for a minute and goes back and for the between the two ends, in an undecided, but interesting way.
“The Obsessed” sounds a bit like The Obsessed but shittier and fuzzier…
“To Transcend Bitterness” is quite a nice tune, because it has some interesting dynamics and visits both end of the aural spectrum, it’s just that Pelander is not “that” a capable singer… surely he’s passionate, but his voice crackles here and there…
Initially I thought “Helpless” was instrumental, as it’s a mostly mellow instrumental till the middle, when some verse “happens” and this happens once more, in something that sounds more like a decent idea for a part of a song rather than a proper song… the abrupt end is also evident of the fact that this is more of a jam that ended up in there, rather than a conscious attempt at writing a song.
“Breakdown” is a maudlin of a track with almost seven minutes of the same guitar motif and some “weepy” vocals that are interrupted by a spoken part before another simple and primal riff gets repeated for another five or six minutes with some more “teary/passionate” vocals and then it all goes artsy with some cello and some choir type of thing that make it sound outworldly and psych. Certainly a stretch for something that lasts sixteen minutes and a sign of laziness or dysfunction.
Lastly, “Chasing Rainbows” returns to a semblance of normality. It’s a poorly sung 70s heavy rock hymn that seems to send up in thick smokey circles a multitude of influences to close the album decently.
Obviously this will be promoted as “a masterpiece” but it’s a largely uneven attempt, by a continuation of a band by a single member, in ways that might stay somewhat canonical, but also seem to be at the very least dubious as to their effectiveness and potential future.