The cover of this fifth full-length from Toulouse (France) traditional stoner-doomers states that this is ‘The New Scary Recording by Witchthroat Serpent’. At a time where music has been pushed, both in composition and production, to the Gates of Hades itself, it is a fairly bold statement …so let’s see if it is true.
If you like your evil served through grainy film production, shadows that lurk in creaking old houses and pissing about with an Ouija board as a kid, then this is absolutely an evil record. Ever since old Tony learned to play with a few bits of flesh short of a hand, the demonic slabbing riffs and soaring, reverberating vocals of fuzzed up doom have literally oozed with the occult.
To that end, the marvelously named Witchthroat Serpent have produced a record that is loyally true to the genre, steeped in haze and wobbly guitar lines, and encapsulating all the ‘scary’ bits of this music. Extensive opener ‘Cursed Night Circle’ rises and falls with all the sinewy arms of a coven in a woodland clearing under moonlight, ‘Silver Bell of Satanic Ritual’ has the classic Butler/Ward walking rhythm line but, quite astonishingly, no trace of a bell and my favorite track ‘The Blinded Magpie’ takes you down a detuned hell hole and makes you hold hands with some horned fellow who doesn’t seem to want to turn any lights on.
In all honesty, ‘Demons Left To Roam’ is a hugely enjoyable and immersive listen. No, it doesn’t try to do anything other than stay utterly fixated on our Brummie forefathers – but it does remind us that what Sabbath once created is still as relevant, as robust and as scary as it ever was.
best Paired With: someone jumping out from behind a door and shouting boo, wearing your uncle’s crucifix necklace upside down and buying an orange Amp.
Reviewed by jaff.
Witchthroat Serpent – Demons Left To Roam is out now on heavy psych sounds records.
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