Occult Witches - Sorrow's Pyre

 

 

Occult Witches - Sorrow's Pyre
Black Throne Productions - 2024
Classic Rock, Blues, Stoner
Rated: ****1/2

After a short, crackling intro, Canadian powerhouse Occult Witches hands us the first proper track: 'Malice'. It starts as a beautiful, acoustic pop tune that could be high up in the charts all around the world and immediately shows the vocal prowess of singer Vanessa San Martin. She's got exactly the right combination of technique, soul and power and you know instantly she's gonna nail everything that gets thrown her way. And the confirmation soon reveals itself, because it doesn't take long before that first song shows its gnarling teeth when the musicians settle into a groove and melody that propels you straight back to Thin Lizzy's heyday - with Phil Lynott looking down in awe from his own private cloud in heaven. The tone is set for an album that weaves a pulverising pattern of musical influences to create a uniqueness all its own.

The Sabbath meets Uriah Heep belter called 'Tumbling through the Dark' is short and ferocious with the rhythm section of bass player Danick Cournoyer and drummer Eliot Sirois taking centre stage and even settling into a jazzy groove for a few seconds, something they also do in the next track 'Faustian Bargain', one of the highlights and part seventies blues oriented classic rock ballad, part heavy hitting rock with subtle elements of folk and jazz thrown in for good measure.

And just when you think you've heard it all, they catch you off guard with a laidback instrumental - a beautiful acoustic guitar composition called 'Interlude in E-Flat Minor' that leans heavily on Nordic and Celtic traditional music. It more or less divides the album in two sections, because what follows is the menacing 'Flesh and Bones', ready to hand some high fives to Iron Maiden, besides the obvious seventies influences of the bands mentioned before. 'The Fool' is another one of those heavier tunes with a distinct blues swagger that gains power and pace on numerous occasions. Second to last song 'Sorrow' maybe isn't the most appealing of the bunch (as in: it isn't the most accessible), but it still packs a lot of punch and grows over time. Closer 'Bluesman/Sunrise Cocaine' is exactly what it wants to be - a blues rock number that starts off slow, but gets all kinds of adrenaline shots throughout. The guitar playing at the end even gives me some Jethro Tull and Focus flute melody vibes.

Okay now you might start to think: why hasn't that bastard mentioned guitarist Alec Sundara Marceau earlier? Well, because I didn't know when. In every song he delivers stunning, ear-splicing guitar solos that just can't be separated. It's an all-out freak fest within the room the songs provide. And then there's the chemistry of the band as a whole that needs to be addressed. The tight as fuck rhythm section that seems to be melting together with the guitars and Vanessa who has got one of the most powerful and soulful voices in the heavy underground scene and can easily keep up with the guys - maybe even challenges them to take the whole thing to another level. No mean feat if you ask me. Add to that the dark, haunting, mystical overall feel caused by that chemistry and the addition of little twists and turns, like for example the references to folk and jazz, as well as some doom-like passages and a slightly spooky bridge in 'Flesh and Bones', and you kind of feel like a voyeur; like you're secretly watching an angelic ritual take place inside a hidden stone circle somewhere in the nether regions of the underworld. And it feels great.

(Written by Ronny Dijksterhuis)

Bandcamp

Facebook

Instagram

LinkTree