MANAGING EDITOR IAN WHEELER-NICHOLSON: WITCH ALBUM PREVIEW WITH EXCLUSIVE MP3 SAMPLE AND ALBUM ART

I’ll be the first to say it: I’m old school. (I won’t mention my age, but let’s just say I saw Iron Maiden play Radio City Music Hall—on the Powerslave tour—and leave it at that.) So of course I grew up with Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Kiss—the granddaddies and great-granddaddies of today’s hard rock. Don’t get me wrong—I love the new shit, too. It’s just that, for me, it doesn’t get better than that classic hard-rock sound of heavy blues-based riffs, trippy solos, and stoned-out drumming.

Which is why I was ecstatic when, two years ago, a friend of mine handed me the self-titled debut by Witch, the new project by Dinosaur Jr founding guitarist J Mascis and his cronies. (Although Mascis has laid down his ax in the new band, returning with a vengeance to his first instrumental love, the drums.) With its slow and heavy sound and songs about black-magic practitioners, the disc was speaking my language, and it blew me away. But while Witch’s Sabbathian riffs and fuzzed-up freakouts are clearly rooted in the blues-drenched metal I love so much, there is undeniably a contemporary edge as well. Witch is lo-fi stoner rock for the iPod era, and it gave me renewed faith that the old and the new can co-exist—good news for a geezer like myself.

So it was with a mixture of excitement and trepidation that I received an advance copy of the follow-up, Paralyzed (Tee Pee; due March 18), here at Revolver HQ the other day. You all know the feeling: When a band has blown you away once, you hope they’re going to top themselves while at the same time you have that sinking feeling that the new disc is gonna suck.

I’m happy to report that Witch continue their dark conjurations on the new disc, though their sound has definitely evolved. Overall the album is faster and more hardcore than the debut. Gone is much of the contemplative, introspective sludgery; instead we have needle-sharp solos and confident, fast-paced riffs. Still in place are Kyle Thomas’ earnest, impassioned vocals, even if at times he sounds almost winded trying to keep up with Mascis’ speed-demon drumwork (one track is appropriately titled “1000 MPH”). The band feels tighter and more comfortable playing to one another’s strengths, and the result is a fast, frenetic, but controlled slab of madness. The second track, "Gone," in particular, highlights the band’s persona after two albums together, laying down a devilishly catchy mid-tempo blues hook while Thomas, as always, sings his heart out as if urging a circle of pointy-hatted fellow worshipers to raise their brooms in tribute.

We’ll be covering Witch in much greater detail in the June issue of Revolver (on sale in late April), so I won’t say any more just now, but rest assured, Paralyzed is a worthy example of Witch’s craft, and deserves a place on the shelf of any metalhead—old school or new.


Download "Gone" from Paralyzed here.