Acid Witch, Stoned
Holy freakin’ hell. Apparently, I’ve lived a sheltered metal life having never heard anything from these purveyors of the macabre before throwing their sophomore full-length into the CD player this morning. Sweet merciful crap, Stoned is like reliving the same disturbing, re-occurring nightmare in the light of day, over and over with no resolution.
Blending psychedelic, doom, death, sludge and more into an evil concoction of massive slab riffs, catchy groove and Black Sabbath worship, Acid Witch deliver one of the more enjoyable albums I’ve heard so far in a very young 2011 (let alone the past few months). The guys (two of them from what I can see) of Acid Witch deliver the stuff that bad dreams are made of through ten tracks of doomy, riff-fueled mayhem and ominous atmospheres.
Skipping over “Satanic Faith,” a two minute intro, “Witchfynder Finder” gets right down to business with scuzzy guitars that carry plenty of groove and momentum accompanied by a steady rhythm along with a slick lead about three quarters of the way through. The vocals throughout the album are gruff, growling and menacing. The slower pace these guys embrace only proves to make the songs that much more dense and malevolent. Chugging groove continue with the sinister “Trick Of Treat” (that also features crazy, psychedelic organs), the monstrous “Thundering Hooves” (which is a little sample heavy) and the organ-fueled “Live Forever.”
After spinning this one relentlessly all morning, I’ve found that I gravitate more to the tracks in the latter half of the disc after the horror movie soundtrack/interlude “Whispers in the Dark.” The heavy riffs and deeper guttural vocal delivery make “If Hell Exists” one of the more powerful movements on the disc as “Stoned to the Grave” is beyond psychedelic with wailing organs, dense, doomy riffs and one hell of a catchy chorus/hook combo. The album is capped by the infectiously evil duo of “Metal Movie Marijuana Massacre Meltdown” and “Sabbath of the Undead” — both of which have some of the heavier grooves and riffs with more up-beat tempos.
In researching Acid Witch‘s history for this review, I began to come across reviews of this specific album that complained that it was too much like their debut. Having never heard Witchtanic Hallucinations before, I will have to reserve any similar judgement until a later date. That all said, who gives a fuck. If a band is playing some sick shit like the menacing music heard on this particular album, and playing it pretty fucking well at that, who cares if it’s similar to previous material. Stoned is a catchy as hell album that doesn’t really seem to care about pushing boundaries. I’ve got no problem with that. As long as the disc rocks — and in this instance scares — the living shit out of me, I’m going to listen to it all damned day long.