Album Review: Witchcraft, Idag
The Swedish word idag is ‘today’ in English, and that’s exactly where Witchcraft meet you. It’s not to be confused with yesterday or tomorrow.
Since their founding in 2000 by guitarist/vocalist Magnus Pelander, Witchcraft have spearheaded a genre, revamped their sound, and made a name for themselves as one of the most important bands of their generation. By now, they’re bordering on ‘classic’ themselves. Their first two albums, 2004’s Witchcraft (discussed here) and 2005’s Firewood, helped establish ’70s vintageism in heavy rock and roll in a way few bands have.
Pelander, who was in Norrsken prior with members of Graveyard and Dead Man for three pivotal demos and a 7″ that desperately need to be on a complete-works compilation, is the lone remaining founder, and has for most of the band’s tenure been the figurehead, auteur, however you want to say it. By the time they got to their third LP, 2007’s The Alchemist (discussed here), they were moving on in sound.
Idag (for which I wrote the bio here) reckons with Witchcraft‘s stylistic origins in a way the band has not done before. Pelander is joined for the outing by Philip Pilossian (Lowest Creature) on bass and Pär Hjulström (Mowgli, etc.) on drums, and when it’s a full band, the sound can be thick and resoundingly doomed like the eight-minute opening title-track “Idag,” which is also the longest cut on the record (immediate points for starting with it), with Björn Ekholm Eriksson sitting in on synth. Clearly Witchcraft today have learned from Witchcraft yesterday.
The later “Burning Cross” (5:00) has a raw, garage-y sway and slowed-down heavy blues riff, and it’s probably as close as they’ve come in 20 years to the approach that set them forth. “Spirit” (6:31), which caps before an epilogue, is a fuzzed oblivion topped with accordingly sorrowful and soulful vocals. If you’re the kind of Witchcraft fan who since they signed to Nuclear Blast and put out Legend (review here) in 2012 has been pining away for the organic primitivism of their first releases, you are not left out of Idag.
But this in itself is a redirect. Witchcraft‘s last album was 2020’s Black Metal (review here), which was transgressive in its interpretation to say the least, with Pelander on acoustic guitar and vocals and nothing else. A spiritual successor to Pelander‘s 2016 solo album, Time (review here) and an earlier four-track CD EP, Black Metal pulled the rug out from under the heavy rock grandstanding and slicker production of 2016’s Nucleus (review here) and hard-left-turned Witchcraft into a different kind of band. I don’t know the circumstances behind that release, but it was a stark change.
Now aligned to Heavy Psych Sounds with a new manager in Sean “Pellet” Pelletier — who circa-2008 masterminded a comeback for Pentagram that resulted in the 2011 documentary Last Days Here; one enjoys the consideration that Pentagram‘s early days were a defining influence for young Witchcraft — the trio led by Pelander can be full and forceful on “Burning Cross” and then boogie out on the Leaf Hound-esque “Irreligious Flamboyant Flame” (3:55) but that’s still only half of Idag‘s project. Recorded across what seem to have been different sessions with a variety of tones and approaches, the album manifests much of what Witchcraft are and have been to this point and looks ahead to what they still may become.
Because, make no mistake, ‘today’ is where past and future meet. A fair portion of Idag is in Swedish. “Drömmar av is” (2:56) follows the title-track and is a slow-moving distorted nod complemented by the even-rawer “Drömmen om död och förruttnelse” (3:24) the latter sounding like it was recorded live, and that deconstruction of the brunt offered by “Idag” continues as “Om du vill” (2:37) drops drums and bass in favor of strummed electric guitar and vocals — something Pelander is a more than capable enough singer to pull off, in his native language or English — and the brief side-A-ending “Gläntan” goes further into minimalism with just over a minute of wistfully folkish standalone acoustic guitar before “Burning Cross” brings a heavy reset for side B.
The second half of Idag, and thus the album as a whole, also ends acoustic, with the 44-second “Om du vill (Slight Return),” but the course that gets there isn’t so linear. One might think of “Burning Cross” and the rawer “Irreligious Flamboyant Flame” as complements, and the same applies to the acoustic narrative “Christmas” (6:08) — which seems to recount a familial falling out marked by the devastating realization, “I’m not so sure/That you miss me at all/I was never sure/That you love me at all,” delivered in English in the fragile space between the strums of a verse — and “Spirit,” which follows directly. There is a flow from one to the next, from the fuller, heavier sound into more of the organic, in-the-room classic-heavy, into acoustic balladeering and back toward the resonant march of downerist riffing.
“Spirit” establishes its riff over the first minute and is intentionally grueling for its six and a half minutes, the tempo holding for the duration, and that Idag would make its ending in “Om du vill (Slight Return)” highlights how much of the album’s impact is emotional. That’s not to say its heavier moments are somehow lacking tonal presence or don’t hit hard or whatever — Idag is the heaviest Witchcraft have ever sounded, and that includes those shiny modernized outings for Nuclear Blast — and for the first time in their 25 years, they fully account for each aspect of the development Pelander has undertaken over that span. It’s all here, and at 40 minutes, one can only call it efficiently encapsulated.
So if the question going into Idag was what Witchcraft were going to be this time around, the answer is a bit of everything they’ve ever been. This in itself, the breaking down of barriers between various modes of operating and constructions, full-band or solo, and so on, is a forward-thinking representation of Witchcraft, but there’s no question that the story of Idag is that of Pelander bringing classic heavy back into their sound in a way it hasn’t been in 20 years. That he does it as part of a broader scope tells you that Witchcraft circa ’25 aren’t looking to be defined as any one single thing other than themselves, and perhaps that is what they’ve been working toward all along.
One never knows what the future will bring, if Witchcraft (who also made a rare US appearance at this year’s Maryland Death Fest, where the photo above was taken; credit to @dcmetalchris) are beginning a new surge to engage a new generation of listeners or not, but it sure sounds like they’re making an effort in that regard, and Idag leaves one with high hopes and expectations alike going forward. Fingers crossed, anyhow.
Witchcraft, Idag (2025)
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Tags: Heavy Psych Sounds, Idag, Örebro, Sweden, Witchcraft, Witchcraft Idag
