There aren’t a lot of singers out there I’d be interested to hear take on a track originally vocalized by Ronnie James Dio, but Laura Donnelly of King Witch — whose voice contains enough power and classic metal righteousness at any given moment to reactivate the volcano under Castle Rock — is one of them. King Witch released their second album, Body of Light (review here), last year through Listenable Records, and thereby built upon the epic foundations laid forth on 2018’s Under the Mountain (review here), striking into purposefully grandiose territory with the brashness of true heavy metal. Some would call covering Dio-era Black Sabbath heresy on its face. What could possibly be more metal than that?
The results are admirable, as the video below demonstrates. Donnelly, guitarist/producer Jamie Gilchrist, bassist Rory Lee and drummer Lyle Brown begin by pulling Sabbath‘s Heaven and Hell off the LP shelf — I spy a copy of Alice in Chains‘ Dirt on there as well; another all-time personal favorite — and then set to unfurling their own version of the track, nailing the deceptively speedy tempo that creates the tension ultimately paid off in the song’s final section. Hitting the notes as required, Donnelly puts her own spin on the delivery just the same, as one would hope, and comes across as trained, professional, and up to the significant task before her. Among the number of pandemic-era cover clips — can’t do shows, gotta do something, could do much worse than recording yourself playing music you like and sharing — King Witch stand out in production quality as well as sheer audacity.
Both are well worthy of respect. So, respect.
Enjoy:
King Witch, “Children of the Sea” official video
Black Sabbath’s Children of the Sea is the first track in King Witch’s forthcoming two part digital covers EP “Worship the Riffs” which was recorded in December 2020 during lockdown.
“We are all huge fans of Black Sabbath and this song is just so epic. It was a great way for us as a band to connect and have a bit of fun during lockdown. We very much hope we do it justice and we hope you enjoy it.”
Keep it heavy – Keep it loud!
Originally performed by Black Sabbath. Composer/Author: Butler Terrence, Padavona Ronald, Iommi Anthony Frank, Ward W T. Published by Essex Music International Inc, Niji Music
Posted in Bootleg Theater on September 30th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
Shovels in the woods — never a good sign. I’ll take it though when it comes as part of a new King Witch video. As one has noted several times over at this point, 2020 feels particularly rough for good records that can’t get their due owing to a lack of live performances, and hell’s bells, that couldn’t possibly be truer of King Witch‘s second LP, Body of Light (review here). The thing happened to come out through Listenable Records on April 24, which was one of the busiest release dates of the year, and it ruled, but in addition to plenty of high-profile competition for the hard-earned cash and attention of the heavy underground listenership, it also happened to be in the middle of a friggin’ plague lockdown.
Let’s understate it for a change and call those circumstances “less than optimal.” So much metallic triumph throughout Body of Light and all anyone’s thinking about is how much groceries they need to buy in one trip so they can not leave the house for the next two weeks solid. Being in such a position has led bands to try all kinds of digitalia in order to self-promote. Streams, mostly, but also live and archival releases, all sorts of whatnot. Even just increased posting on social media, whatever shape that might take. Gotta work those algorithms. In the case of powerhouse vocalist Laura Donnelly, she went out to said woods with said shovel and a camera and made a video for the eight-minute epic-because-King–Witch-only-do-epic “Return to Dust” off of Body of Light, and you know what? It worked. Frankly, I’m just happy to have an excuse to put the record on again as a part of my day.
Live shows? Well, of course the list below should be taken with the now-usual caveats that everything depends on outbreaks and what public regulations are for the dates in question. As an American though, it’s hard to remember that everyone else on the planet seems to be handling the ol’ firelung so much better than my own country. I don’t know Scotland’s numbers, but I do know that if I were lucky enough to be in Edinburgh on Dec. 5, I’d get my ass to that show and hope for more in February.
Video and dates follow, as well as some comment from Donnelly via the PR wire.
Enjoy:
King Witch, “Return to Dust” official video
Critically acclaimed by the international press for their new album ‘Body of Light ‘ , King witch unveil today their new brand video ” Return to dust “
Laura Donnelly explains the making of this supernatural video: “I created the video during lockdown in our local forest and at home. I hope it conveys a sense of fragility whilst engulfed in heavy riffage. I think the colour and mood suits the song very well – helping to give a supernatural vibe. My neighbours however will totally think I’m a complete weirdo after hearing me almost drown in my bath several times and being caught in the woods digging a hole and burying myself. When Jamie first let me listen to the original ideas for ‘Return to Dust; I was immediately dropped into a Clint Eastwood/Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western. The song however quickly changes to become something a lot darker. I had not long read the graphic novel Preacher and really liked the idea of mixing the supernatural with dusty desert tales. “Return to Dust” is basically about someone dying and crossing over to the other side. They are confused and frightened but the reality of the situation soon becomes clear, there is nothing to mourn. They know what they must do – return to dust.”
KING WITCH ’s ‘Body of Light’ was Recorded at Deep Storm Productions, produced and Mixed by Kevin Hare and Jamie Gilchrist and mastered by Tom Dring.
King Witch live: 5th DEC 2020 – EDINBURGH – LA BELLE ANGELE 4th FEB 2021 – EDINBURGH – THE HIVE 5th FEB 2021 – GLASGOW – IVORY BLACKS 6th FEB 2021- IPSWITCH – MUSIC ROOMS 7th FEB 2021 – BRADFORD – THE UNDERGROUND 12th FEB 2021 – SWANSEA – HANGER 18 13th FEB 2021 – LONDON – THE DEVONSHIRE ARMS 14th FEB 2021 – OXFORD – THE WHEATSHEAF
MORE TO BE CONFIRMED …
King Witch are : Laura Donnelly – Vocals Jamie Gilchrist – Guitar Rory Lee – Bass Lyle Brown – Drums
Welcome to the penultimate day of the Summer 2020 Quarterly Review. I can only speak for myself, but I know it’s been a crazy couple months on this end, and I imagine whatever end you’re on — unless and probably even if you have a lot of money — it’s been the same there as well. Yet, it was no problem compiling 50 records to review this week, so if there’s a lesson to be taken from it all, it would seem to be that art persists. We may still be painting on cave walls when it comes to the arc of human evolution, but at least that’s something.
Have a great day and listen to great music.
Quarterly Review #31-40:
Katatonia, City Burials
Like their contemporaries in My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost, the latter-day period of work from Sweden’s Katatonia veers back toward some measure of direct heaviness, as City Burials showcases in cuts like “Rein,” “Heart Set to Divide” and “Behind the Blood,” but more than either of those others mentioned, the Stockholm outfit refuse to forsake the melody and progressivism they’ve undertaken with their sound in the name of doing so. By the time they get to “Untrodden” at the end of the album’s 50-minute/11-song run, they’ve run a gamut from dark electronica to progressive-styled doom and back again, and with the founding duo of guitarist Anders Nyström and vocalist Jonas Renkse at the helm of the songwriting, they are definitive in their approach and richly emotive; a melancholy that is as identifiable in their songs as it is in the bands working under their influence. Their first work in four years, City Burials is an assurance that Katatonia are in firm ownership and command of all aspects of their sound. As they approach their 30th year, they continue to move forward. That’s a special band.
Boasting production, mixing and percussion from The Golden Grass‘ Adam Kriney, Marmalade Knives‘ debut album, Amnesia, is a delight of freaky-but-not-overblown heavy psychedelia. Oh, it’s headed far, far out, but as the opening narration and the later drones of second cut “Rivuleting” make plain, they might push, but they’re not trying to shove, if you know what I mean. The buzz in “Best-Laid Plans” doesn’t undercut the warmth of the improvised-seeming solo, and likewise, “Rebel Coryell” is a mellow drifter that caps side A with a graceful sense of wandering the soundscape of its own making. The vibe gets spacey on “Xayante,” and “Ez-Ra” touches on a funkier swing before seeming to evolve into light as one does, and the 10-minute “Astrology Domine” caps with noise and a jammed out feel that underscores the outbound mood of the proceedings as a whole. Some of the pieces feel like snippets cut from longer jams, and they may or may not be just that, but though it was recorded in three separate locations, Amnesia draws together well and flows easily, inviting the listener to do the same.
Edinburgh’s King Witch toe the line between classic metal and doom, but whatever you want to call them, just make sure you don’t leave out the word “epic.” The sweeping solo and soaring vocals on the opening title-track set the stage on their second LP, the hour-long Body of Light, and as much mastery as the band showed on their 2018 debut, Under the Mountain (review here), vocalist Laura Donnelly, guitarist Jamie Gilchrist, bassist Rory Lee and drummer Lyle Brown lay righteous waste to lofty expectations and bask in grandiosity on “Of Rock and Stone” and the linear-moving “Solstice I – She Burns,” the payoff of which is a high point of the album in its layered shred. Pieces like “Witches Mark” and “Order From Chaos” act as confirmation of their Euro-fest-ready fist-pumpery, and closer “Beyond the Black Gate” brings some atmosphere before its own headbang-worthy crescendo. Body of Light is a reminder of why you wanted to be metal in the first place.
Eminently listenable and repeat-worthy, Glass Parallels‘ debut LP, Aisle of Light, nonetheless maintains an experimentalist flair. The solo-project of Justin Pinkerton (Golden Void, Futuropaco), covers a swath of ground from acid folk to psych-funk to soul vibes, at times bordering on shoegaze but seeming to find more expressive energy in centerpiece “Asphyxiate” and the airy capper “Blood and Battlegrounds” than any sonic portrayal of apathy would warrant. United by keys, pervasive guitar weirdness and Pinkerton‘s at-times-falsetto vocals, usually coated in reverb as they are, Aisle of Light brings deceptive depth for being a one-man production. Its production is spacious but still raw enough to give the drums an earthy sound as they anchor the synth-laden “March and April,” which is probably fortunate since otherwise the song would be liable to float off and not return. One way or another, the songs stand out too much to really be hypnotic, but they’re certainly fun to follow.
Stonework is the self-aware debut full-length from Portland, Maine, trio Thems That Wait, and it shoulders itself between clenched-teeth metallic aggression and heavier fuzz rock. They’re not the first to tread such ground and they know it, but “Sidekick” effectively captures Scissorfight-style groove, and “Kick Out” is brash enough in its 1:56 to cover an entire record’s worth of burl. Interludes “Digout” and “Vastcular” provide a moment to catch your breath, which is appreciated, but when what they come back with is the sure-fisted “Paragon” or a song like “Shitrograde,” it really is just a moment. They close with “Xmortis,” which seems to reference Evil Dead II in its lyrics, which is as good as anything else, but from “Sleepie Hollow” onward, guitarist/vocalist Craig Garland, bassist Mat Patterson and drummer Branden Clements find their place in the dudely swing-and-strike of riffs, crash and snarl, and they do so with a purely Northeastern attitude. This is the kind of show you might get kicked at.
Complexity extends to all levels of Sojourner‘s third album and Napalm Records debut, Premonitions, in that not only does the band present eight tracks and 56 minutes of progressive and sprawling progressive black metal, varied in craft and given a folkish undercurrent by Chloe Bray‘s vocals and tin whistle, but also the sheer fact that the five-piece outfit made the album in at least five different countries. Recording remotely in Sweden, New Zealand, Scotland and Italy, they mixed/mastered in Norway, and though one cringes at the thought of the logistical nightmare that might’ve presented, Sojourner‘s resultant material is lush and encompassing, a tapestry of blackened sounds peppered with clean and harsh singing — Emilio Crespo handles the screams — keyboards, and intricate rhythms behind sprawling progressions of guitar. At the center of the record, “Talas” and “Fatal Frame” (the shortest song and the longest) make an especially effective pair one into the other, varied in their method but brought together by viciously heavy apexes. The greatest weight, though, might be reserved for closer “The Event Horizon,” which plods where it might otherwise charge and brings a due sense of largesse to the finale.
The order of the day is sprawl on Udyat‘s recorded-live sophomore LP, Oro, as the Argentinian outfit cast a wide berth over heavy rock and terrestrial psych, the 13-minute “Sangre de Oro” following shorter opener “Los Picos de Luz Eterna” (practically an intro at a bit over six minutes) with a gritty flourish to contrast the tonal warmth that returns with the melodic trance-induction at the start of “Los últimos.” That song — the centerpiece of the five-track outing — tops 15 minutes and makes its way into a swell of fuzz with according patience, proceeding through a second stage of lumbering plod before a stretch of noise wash leads pack to the stomp. The subsequent “Después de los Pasos, el Camino Muere” is more ferocious by its end and works in some similar ground, and closer “Nacimiento” seems to loose itself in a faster midsection before returning to its midtempo roll. Oro borders on cosmic doom with its psychedelic underpinnings and quiet stretches, but its movement feels ultimately more like walking than floating, if that makes any sense.
To anyone who might suggest that extreme metal cannot also be forward-thinking, Bismarck submit the thoughtful bludgeon of Oneiromancer, a five-song/35-minute aesthetic blend that draws from doom, death, hardcore and sundry other metals, while keeping its identity in check through taut rhythm and atmospheric departures. Following the chants of opening intro “Tahaghghogh Resalat,” the Chris Fielding-produced follow-up to Bismarck‘s 2018 debut, Urkraft (review here), showcases an approach likewise pummeling and dynamic, weighted in ambience and thud alike. “Oneiromancer” itself starts with blastbeats and a plundering intensity before breaking into a more open midsection, but “The Seer” is absolutely massive. Despite being shorter than either the title-track or “Hara,” both of which top nine minutes, and closer “Khthon” underscores the blood-boiling tension cast throughout with one last consuming plod. Fucking raging. Fucking awesome. Pure sonic catharsis. Salvation through obliteration. If these are dreams being divined as the title hints, the mind is a limitless and terrifying place. Which, yes.
I won’t say it’s seamless or intended to be, but as Albuquerque, New Mexico, two-piece The Gral Brothers make their initial move on Caravan East between cinematic Americana and industrial brood, samples of dialogue on “Cactus Man” and violin in the seven-minute soundscaper “In Die Pizzeria” seem to draw together both a wistfulness and a paranoia of the landlocked. Too odd to fall in line with the Morricone-worship of Cali’s Spindrift, “Crowbar” brings Spaghetti West and desert dub together with a confidence that makes it seem like a given pairing despite the outwardly eerie vibes and highly individualized take, and “Santa Sleeves” is beautiful to its last, even if the lone bell jingle is a bit much, while “Silva Lanes” pushes even further than did “Circuit City” into mechanized experimental noisemaking. They end with the birdsong-inclusive “Ode to Marge,” leaving one to wonder whether it’s sentiment or cynicism being expressed. Either way, it’s being expressed in a way not quite like anything else, which is an accomplishment all on its own.
When you’re at the show and the set ends, Flamingo Graphics is the CD you go buy at the merch table. It’s as simple as that. Recorded this past March over the course of two days, the debut album from Floridian foursome Astral Glide is raw to the point of being barebones, bootleg room-mic style, but the songwriting and straightforward purposes of the group shine through. They’re able to shift structures and mood enough to keep things from being too staid, but they’re never far off from the next heavy landing, as “Devastation” and the closer “Forever” show in their respective payoffs, that latter going all out with a scream at the end, answering back to the several others that show up periodically. While their greatest strength is in the mid-paced shove of rockers like “Space Machine” and “Scarlett” and the speedier “Workhorse,” there are hints of broader intentions on Flamingo Graphics, though they too are raw at this point. Very much a debut, but still one you pick up when the band finishes playing. You might not even wait until the end of the show. Meet them back at the table, and so on.
Posted in Whathaveyou on February 5th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
A little bummed to see that the news of King Witch‘s impending second album doesn’t arrive with any unveiled audio, but then, I would be. Their first one, 2018’s Under the Mountain (review here), did nothing to shy away from its affinity for metallic glories, and I’ve no reason to expect the luster has dulled in the time since. Plus, calling out a Rainbow influence — specifically Rainbow, separate from Deep Purple, Black Sabbath or anything else Ritchie Blackmore or Ronnie James Dio have ever been or were involved in — is among the quickest ways to my heart. Straight to it, you might say.
So here we are:
KING WITCH ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM ‘BODY OF LIGHT’!
Formed in late 2015 in a dark cavern beneath the streets of old Edinburgh, Bristling with dark majesty, KING WITCH draw comparisons ranging from Black Sabbath and Candlemass to Mastodon and High On Fire. The band quickly earned themselves a reputation as a formidable live act and have toured the UK and Europe in support of their first full length debut album “Under The Mountain” which was released on Listenable in 2018 .
KING WITCH ’s highly anticipated second album “Body of Light” further focuses their ability to fuse dense riffage with haunting yet powerful vocal lines and melodies. “Body of Light’ wider dynamic range takes the listener on an electrifying journey from dark, brooding passages through to full-tilt Heavy Metal glory !.
The band comments : « Musically, inspiration came from the same directions as always – the classic doom of Trouble and Candlemass alongside the ever-present influence of Sabbath, Purple and Rainbow. “
Laura Donnelly (vocals) has delivered an amazing artwork once again as she develops : « The cover art depicts a woman floating in space with her skeleton/soul leaving her body. Our title track “Body of Light” is about Astral Projection and having the ability to straddle between different worlds. I felt the concept represented the album well in different ways by illustrating themes such as the occult, myth and legend, the human condition, escapism and, primarily, the question of what lies beyond. »
KING WITCH ’s ‘Body of Light’ was Recorded at Deep Storm Productions, produced and Mixed by Kevin Hare and Jamie Gilchrist and mastered by Tom Dring.
It is scheduled for an April 24 release date.
Tracklisting 1. Body Of Light 05:49 2. Of Rock And Stone 08:26 3. Call Of The Hunter 06:31 4. Return To Dust 08:22 5. Order From Chaos 05:37 6. Solstice I – She Burns 10:16 7. Witches Mark 03:43 8. Solstice II 01:29 9. Beyond the Black Gate 09:55
King Witch are : Laura Donnelly – Vocals Jamie Gilchrist – Guitar Rory Lee – Bass Lyle Brown – Drums
