KING WITCH — Under The Mountain (review)

KING WITCH — Under The Mountain album cover Album · 2018 · Doom Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Nightfly
From Edinburgh, Scotland come King Witch out of the ashes of Firebrand Super Rock which featured vocalist Laura Donnelly and guitarist Jamie Gilchrist, a band I must admit to knowing nothing about despite releasing two albums. Still I’m certainly glad to have discovered King Witch fairly early in their career, Under The Mountain being their debut album coming after their 2015 EP Shoulders Of Giants.

I approached King Witch expecting a doom metal band and to an extent this is true. Songs like album opener Beneath The Waves and Solitary do nothing to dispel that. However for every song that fits the doom label there’s another that treads in more traditional retro metal territory – take the title track and Carnal Sacrifice for example and some of these songs crack along at a fair pace. This album is certainly heavy with nods to Black Sabbath littered throughout and the dense and organic production aids this. Vocalist Laura Donnelly is a revelation – definitely more of an old school singer with a powerful and soulful delivery shown to full effect on the excellent ballad Ancients which offers a bit of diversification and a brief break from the overall heaviness. The rest of the band are no slouches either and turn in strong performances with the rhythm section of Joe Turner and Lyle Brown laying down a strong foundation with plenty of syncopated rhythms whilst guitarist Jamie Gilchrist has an arsenal of memorable and inventive riffs at his disposal.

I just discovered on the day that King Witch were playing 35 miles up the road from me last Saturday but sadly it was too late to organise a trip to see them. Hopefully catch them next time but for now I’ll make do with this great debut album.
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