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WITCHROT
Hollow

Self-released (2021)
Rating: 8.5/10

Time to form a séance and celebrate this stonkingly good doom metal opus from the relatively new Canadian act Witchrot. If you want a distinctive female vocal delivery then Witchrot is your new favourite band – a sizzling, soulful and bewitching globule of fuzzed-up psych dripping in orgasmic sludge and anomalous algae.

Hollow – the Toronto band’s debut full-length – oozes eight tracks, none of which are overlong and yet all are led by the sexy, smoky vocal croons of Lea Alyssandra Reto who feels no need to act the predictable coven witch, in spite of the band moniker. Instead, we hear a lazy drool married with laid back, haunting wisps, while behind her the band stirs up mesmeric monoliths of psychedelic doom.

No better place to start than with opener ‘Million Shattered Words’. It’s the longest tune on the record at seven-minutes, but one which doesn’t drag. Instead, Witchrot builds a framework of kaleidoscopic fuzz as the track heaves like a mighty mountain mantra in worship of Lea’s soaring, dry tone.

‘Colder Hands’ creeps with menace, in its depth a siren-like melancholy wails like a horn of wining doom as the combo trudges and consumes Lea’s hidden words, before she cries “I’m gonna leave this world… done with sucking the blood from you”. The band construct great tidal waves of rolling thunder and lightning colour as massive concentrated fizzes of psych-sludge cult heroes of mine, Fear Of God, ooze into the equation through the lethargic swamp.

‘Spiral Of Sorrow’ exudes menace as pillars crumble into its bulbous, bubbling cauldron of fuzz, while Lea’s vocals are eerie whispers in the murk. Throw this track onto surreal television series Twin Peaks and you’ve got yourself a journey into woodland weirdness.

And that’s what I love about Witchrot; those surreal, multi-coloured landscapes of doom, and yet rarely are such oozing levels daubed in gloominess. Instead, we get obscure gems such as ‘Fog’ which emits a creepiness and avant-garde atmosphere in spite of its straight-forward clanking lumber.

‘Devil In Your Eyes’ begins in a more stark yet menacing fashion, but again you’ll be mesmerised by the music and those steamy vocals before the gargantuan wave consumes. Meanwhile, the closing title track is an eerie trickle of vocal and stark guitar until again there’s that leak of remote, uneasy fuzz.

It’s not all laborious glue rock – just check out the brilliant ‘Burn Me Down’, which is a heap of cool, rock n’ roll straight from the mouldy garage. And that theme continues with the fuzzed-up wildness of ‘I Know My Enemy’, where we surf-a-go-go through the swamp as the clan ups the tempo but keeps the gluey, gloopy groove.

There’s no escaping the strange vibes of Witchrot, with Hollow being the deepest chasm you’ll explore this year. When Lea hauntingly cries “I know your name, I know your face, you know your place”, you’d better believe it. Witchrot is my new favourite band.

Neil Arnold

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