Witchcraft- The Alchemist

DOWNLOAD- The Alchemist (2007) released on Rise Above

About time I wrote a post about Witchcraft, after all they are one of my favourite bands and in my opinion the best musical output that my bullshit hometown has come up with . My friend walked past Magnus Pelander, singer and guitarist in Witchcraft, the other day and he had cut off his long hair. That made me a little sad to hear.  Well... hopefully his singing and guitarplaying wont be affected by it. Time will tell. I hope they will conjure a fourth album soon, it's about time.

The Alchemist however is fucken awesome and you should stop listening to whatever you might find worthy of your time if you haven't heard it yet. As on previous releases they are walking the thin line beetwen doom, stoner and hardrock. The doom riffs brought back from the 70's are still the backbone in the music. There's some diffrences though.  I think all Witchcrafts releases are analouge recordings, though this one has a much cleaner production than the previous two.  There's also a lot of instrumental mainly acoustic parts incorporated in many of the songs on The Alchemist. I liked the track Schyssta Lögner on the first selftitled album because it featured lyrics in swedish. They do this on The Alchemist as well in the song Leva.


I think I have the japanese cd edition of The Alchemist , it features a cover on Sweet Honey Pie as a bonustrack.

... Anyway Bobby Leibling, Rocky Erickson and Toni Iommi are all clapping their hands and so should you.

DOWNLOAD- The Alchemist

Entombed- Left Hand Path

DOWNLOAD- Left Hand Path (1990)

Well whats there to say that hasn't been said before...
This is the purest form of death metal.
Swedish Death Metal! Swedish buzzsaw evool!
This was the beginning of something great that put my homecountry on the (deathmetal)map and inspired so many bands to come.

Just wanted to point that out. I guess I was born 10 years to late to experience the hole thing, But Life Goes On.

Hats off !

MUSKELROCK PÅ TYROLEN!

FUCK YEAH! MUSCLES, ROCK'N ROLL, BEER!
muskelrock= musclerock
The festival tickets and train tickets are bought, so I'm going to attend the strongest festival in Sweden, perhaps in the entire world!

This is the first time in history Pentagram are performing in Sweden and I'm going to be there... that makes me feel. awesome. I'm going to see Bobby Leibling.
+ Ghost, Graveyard, Marulk, Lord Vicar and many more.

Svarti Loghin- Empty World

DOWNLOAD- Empty World

Svarti Loghin means "Black Flame" in ancient swedish. Thats cool. It has the right kvltitude

Whats less cool is that the band is often forced into the genre "depressive black metal", a genre thats become lame since it contains to many wristcutting selfcentered mediocre fuckwits (Xasthur, Lifelover etc not included). In my opinion Svarti Loghin sounds far to happy to be put into that swamp. In the hauntingly beautiful melodies of Svarti Loghin i find myself thinking of bands such as Alcest and Forgotten Woods.

Svarti Loghin's music is a wild blend of black metal and post-rock and I think I read somewhere that they themselves would like to add country music to that. Listen for yourself, Empty World. If you listen carefully you will notice that seven minutes into the song they're playing the melodie from "Here comes the Sun" by The Beatles.



Empty World is a solid debut album. I bought the first demo tape they made upon the release of Empty World and when i got the actual album i felt that i got exactly what i had been hoping for. They released a second album last year called "Drifting through the Void" i haven't had the time to check it out properly but from the little I've heard it's equally good to Empty world.

DOWNLOAD- Empty World

Black Pyramid- Black Pyramid

DOWNLOAD-Black Pyramid (2009)

Another great american stoner/doom band, from Massachussets . This debut is quite something it's going to be hard for Black Pyramid to top it.. because it simply jumps up and smacks you in the face. There's riffs and there's kick ass riffs. This album is a serenade in downtuned kick ass! Not doing it to get payd or laid, you get the feeling this is music made just for the sake of being loud and nasty.
Taste that crusty guitar sound, Visions of Gehenna!

Maybe there's a little Black Sabbath plagiatarism here and there, but i dont mind. I love that reverb on the lead guitar that really sucks you into the atmosphere. It's pretty obvious these guys new what they wanted the music to sound like. The production is perfect, nothing is overlooked. Vocals and bass are clearly audiable even though the guitars take up a lot of space.



I'm only going to bitch about one thing.. and that is the horrible packaging of the cd-edition i have. It's one of those ugly little papersleeves thats foldable. Looks almost like a promo copy. I strongly recomend you buy this album, the LP version!

DOWNLOAD-Black Pyramid

Elder- Elder

DOWNLOAD- Elder (2008)

Elder, well that certainly doesn't apply to the bandmembers. A bunch of lil' teens. Luckly for them age doesn't matter as long as you can handle your instrument skillfully.

What we got here is a decent piece of american stoner/doom. There's some serious Sleep worship going on here. Now, this might not be the best album I have heard but it's far from the worst. I think the problem with this selftitled debut is that Elder only managed to produce one real stand out track that sticks to your mind, The Riddle of Steel part.1. The other material on the album is good and never gets boring but it doesn't stick! Creds to the baseplayer though who does a really good job throughout the album.



Still I see potential in Elder considering how young they are. At the moment the band is on hold. Maybe their mums didn't approve of them dropping out of school to become rockstars. Lets say they start releasing new material sometime in the future then i think we might be up for a treat.

DOWNLOAD- Elder
Tracklist:
1 White Walls
2 Hexe
3 The Riddle of Steel pt.1
4 Ghost Head
5 The Riddle of Steel pt.2

Coven- Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reap Souls.

DOWNLOAD- Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reap Souls

I named my blog in homage to these people, this wicked Coven.
This album was released back in 69' and it sounds like an evil version of The Mamas and the Papas. Just look at that album cover! they have a plastic skull, black inverted crosses and that sinister look on their faces. This must have been seriously scary stuff back then.

The White Witch of Rose Hall

Coven was formed in Chicago in the late 60's when singer Jinx Dawson, to the left, was studying opera and the occult. She met Steve Ross and Oz Osborne who shared her diabolical interests and soon they were playing concerts with bands such as Jimmy Page's Yardbirds and Alice Cooper. Even so Coven has always remained fairly unnoticed, keeping their underground status intact. Maybe their lounge-satanist lyrics about witches, cults and plastic sacrificial knives have kept them off the public radar.

 

Coven's music is a real psychy rock trip! Jinx really developed some amazing vocal skills whilst studying opera. As stated above it sounds a bit like Mamas and the Papas, not so different from Jefferson Airplane. The difference i just that instead of doing the hole peace and love thing, Coven did the opposite.

DOWNLOAD- Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reap Souls
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