If you've seen An Inconvenient Truth, the summer's biggest blockbuster hit, you know shit is hitting the fan. Carbon dioxide is seeping out from every industrial pore and the long-term effects of this are outright frightening. In terms of the short term, Al Gore put a major emphasis on an increase of heavy music. Not that Black Sabbath was ever un-cool, but this style of long-haired metal fantastical-riff-emphasized music is exponentially heightening. Case in point: Witch's Witch, seven songs that really know how to drive a riff without the need of wheels.
Combining J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. with members of the recent neo-folk Feathers, Witch surprises us by putting Mascis on drums and some relative no-names to cover everything else. Instead of covering anybody's previous bouts, Witch decided to dive into hard rock, heavy metal style. Unlike today's metal groups that seem attempt to out-tech each other and gnosh at inhuman tempos, Witch goes for more of a jam speed with soothing vocals that are ready to conjure spells and lull your lady's legs wide open.
The biggest pitfall of Witch is putting the best track first, "Seer," with an eight minute never-ending riff that should just never end. What is nice about having such a powerful track first is that after you've repeated it a few times you can cool out to the remaining six tracks that can all stand on their own with a gloomy feel that makes much more sense when put in a forest-type context. By the time the last track, "Isadora," gallops in with its acoustic medieval feel, prepare to be drenched in fog. And as the electricity surges through the final guitar riffs, our epic journey both begins and ends.
With bands like Early Man and The Sword reaching popularity, I feel as if it would be unfair for a band as good as Witch to be overlooked. Al Gore might not have won the bid for president, but he did make a good point in An Inconvenient Truth when he said, "Thou shalt listen to Witch and smoke thy devil's lettuce."
