Acid Witch - Rot Among Us (2022)

Acid Witch has evolved into what must easily be one of my go-to Halloween bands and sounds. Sure, the aesthetics and influence were always present from their debut, Witchtanic Hallucinations, with its crushing, raw psychedelic doom, but as they've gone on patiently creating new content across the last 15 years, they've developed into a much more varied, progressive style, but without abandoning the down to earth, everyman production values and campy horror inspirations. Slasher Dave has been quite busy with his solo synthesizer/score work, pumping out some really great albums like Halloween Howls, Frights and The Jack-O-Lantern Murders, and I suspect a lot of that actually turns around and informs the direction that Acid Witch takes, but it's also why this material feels so fresh and original.

Evil Sound Screamers was quite an involved, trance-inducing slab of spooks and grooves, but Rot Among Us takes us even a little further than that. You don't really know what to expect with their newer material, because they no longer just settle for the crushing stoner haze of their first two full-lengths. Each of their cuts is like a weird narrative of their own unique horror cosmic, from the Carpenter-like synths that support the guitars and impish chants in "Gather Each Witch" to the chumpy chug and take of the title track, with its goofy and endearing vocals that adorn the more melancholic, melodic riffs. You still have some of those stock, swaggering stoner blues grooves in places like "The Sleeper", but they never bore you to death with anything that even hinges on predictable, they'll churn into a more thrashing riff, or slip in some minor instrumentation like cute little synth tone when you don't quite expect it.

All the while they can still kick out the deeper, bolder rasps, screams or growls, or the bigger riff, but they save these for specific moments where they'll have an impact. They just like to play around with your expectations first, like the antagonist of some cheesy B-horror film, and it makes for a really fun time, and an album that can appeal both to the horror/exploitation hesher and stoner rock fan alike, without taking itself too seriously. Combine this with that earthen, natural feel to the instruments, like they're giving a clean, personal performance of this in your basement while you smoke a bag and stare at all your posters under a black light, and there's really just nothing else quite like Acid Witch. They are their own entity, on their own terms, and the albums just keep getting incrementally better with each progression. This is also my favorite of Shagrat's album covers for them yet, how cool is it to have an artist like that in-house?

Verdict: Win [8.25/10]

https://www.facebook.com/acidwitchofficial/

Acid Witch - Black Christmas Evil EP (2018)

Dave Slasher's last Acid Witch EP was this really great idea that involved covering four Halloween-worthy hard rock horror movie tracks, but unlike a lot of others, who lavished praise upon it, I was just not a fan of the actual execution, even though I I was a fan of some of the original fare it was based upon, and appreciated that such songs would get some attention. Hey, nobody can question the guys' taste. This newer Black Christmas Evil EP is a similar idea, only with another particular Holiday theme, and shorter at only two tracks. This time, the presented material is original, and like a lot of the band's full-lengths, much more to my liking. I rather dug how it felt like a continuation of their very solid, original 2017 album Evil Sound Screamers, only trussed up in a Santa outfit.

So yeah, hideous lo-fi death/doom drudging that sounds enormous despite those factors. I love the integration of the cheery keyboard lines which feel like they were taken off some incidental Xmas record, or some cheesy mid-90s black metal band like Ancient. The vocals are gruesome snarls that are heard well above the music itself, and the overall atmosphere is suitably fun and still heavy. I wouldn't call the riffs in this one their best, but they are dynamic and groovy enough in a succinct tune like this to keep you from growing bored. The second tune, "Christmas Evil (You Better Watch Out!)", was my preferred of the two, opening with a sample from the trailer of the 1980 film of the same name, but then going into this classier doom structure. Lyrically, yes, each of the tracks is based on the eponymous slasher films, which is really par for the Acid Witch course and one might even hope they do a lot more such 'theme' EPs since there's a lot of turf to cover in the horror genre.

There's not a lot of meat on the victims' bones here, but it's a two track EP for $2 on Bandcamp, so there's not much cause to complain, especially when they're well enough written that they could have appeared on Evil Sound Screamers. I think the love of these films shines through in just about everything Dave Slasher and friends put out, and since my own fondness for campy old horror flicks has only grown with age it's something I look forward to. I'd also take the opportunity here to plug his solo synth/score project, which is really well done.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

https://www.facebook.com/acidwitchofficial/

Acid Witch - Evil Sound Screamers (2017)

The Midnight Movies EP was an interesting distraction, but not one I really got into much more than just its novelty, instead pining for the next of Acid Witch's original full-lengths, since they had been on an incline from Witchtanic Hellucinations through Stoned to the Spooky split they put out with Nunslaughter. With Evil Sound Screamers, Slasher Dave and company retain a chunk of their original doom style and then dress it up with a lot more silly horror/Halloween influences than ever before, to the point of utter absurdity. And you know what? If you're in the proper mindset, with a couple dripping candles, a pipe or bong, and a stack of the cheesy yet unforgettable horror VHS tapes, I don't know how you listen through this without at least smirking, if not just having an outright blast as it lurches along with goofy confidence.

The focus here is on a hybrid of Sabbathian stoner-doom with the slightly more refined, melodic strains of riffs that hail from European Gothic doom bands who were themselves inspired by those forebears, but took it to another level of atmosphere. Trad metal and rock influences abound, but these are woven into the measured, patient pace of the album's deep, raw grooves. But that's really just the bedrock of the recording, because they proceed to smother it with synths and organs and all manner of growls and higher pitched, witchy vocals to the point that it almost would seem as if it were cluttering up the mix if it weren't so damned, ironically alluring. I wouldn't say that any of the individual guitar lines were all that remarkable, and in fact a number of them are really predictable, but the sum of this album is just one that feels unique to Acid Witch, because it doesn't take itself so seriously and instead smears you with a face full of over-the-top atmosphere, and a riff set that at least tries to diversify itself so you can discern individual tracks from one another and not just have some overlong, samey slog which is not uncommon in the subgenre.

I really enjoyed the use of the samples here; when combined with some acoustic or keyboard they seem to manifest this strange meta-commentary on cult horror, while ceding the album completely to the heavy metal elements. The synths really are a dominant force, generally used to convey the mood of campy haunted houses, theme parks or the sorts of pads and pitches you'd expect from b-grade horror scores of decades past, like thick distorted runs that will often be matched up with Dave's growling (as in "Cheap Gore"). Or sometimes, they'll ramp up the fuzz on the guitars as they do in "Nain Rouge (The Red Dwarf)" to a super-desert-stoner-rock degree just to keep the listener from roiling over in any form of redundancy. Evil Sound Screams is far from complex, but the panoply of sounds it manages to sneak in there keep it fresh and compelling and in their strange way present a band on the precipice of some form of progression, no matter how crude its core.

That's not to say it's without its annoyances, since some of the harsher growls can fall a little flat, or some of the shrieked vocals just make it feel like the band is fooling around too much. "Enter At Your Own Risk" is almost a pure crone-like narrative piece, for example, where each word evoked might have you keel over laughing, but even here it's really flush with the theme of the album, the tongue-in-cheek sorcery the band as always clad itself in. It's not going to be for everyone, because it's a dense, sloppy mess at points, and some might not get its sense of humor. But by the time the album bursts into "Hardrock Halloween", which opens with the album's sleaziest upbeat metal number, drizzled in bluesy lead syrup, I couldn't stop smiling...by the time it hit the titular closing track, its best and most epic, I just didn't want the damn thing to end. That proggy horror bridge is amazing, and it gets super doomed out at the end before ending in some cinematic ambiance and PSA funk. After which, I go on and spin the whole thing again, because it's an album that embodies so much of my generation's nostalgia for Halloween...the night before Halloween...and the most fun I've had with Acid Witch yet.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.facebook.com/Acid-Witch-146053698843172/

Acid Witch - Midnight Movies EP (2015)

Midnight Movies is an interesting little 'aside' from the Midwest's morbid ganja doomsters Acid Witch, but I'm not quite sure that the 'interesting' is such a positive on this particular release. Not because I don't relish the idea of a death/doom band covering campy 80s horror movie rock tracks, but the way it is manifest here seems a little too much on the 'partying' side of the equation, fucking around where playing it much straighter would have ultimately proven the more humorous route. Hell, I was looking forward to their take on Fastway's "After Midnight", taken from the 1986 Trick or Treat soundtrack, which I happen to really enjoy (the band in general and that song), but rather than transform these tunes into something more fitting for the Acid Witch style, they play them really close to the belt, including the most minimalistic hard rock drum beats possible and guitars that feel too thin and burdened once Shagrat and Slasher Dave start emitting the growled and screamed vocals.

Granted, this is meant to be completely off the wall, and it's even being released on April 1st of all dates, but even then I just can't help thinking this was a missed opportunity to morph such straight shot rockers into some ugly, abusive, cellar shroom doom more like their Stoned album, which I found pretty damn solid. I guess if I was a younger fan and this was the first time I'd ever even heard of these songs and movies, it might feel a lot more clever, but the execution here just seems a little on the lazy side...the beats, the guitar riffs, nothing is conveyed with much more than the power of sheer sarcasm. On the one hand, we now know the band members can hit higher pitches circa a whole lot of cheesy, endearing schlock rock and half the early through mid-80s Metal Blade roster, but once you contrast that with the growling in the bounds of single tunes ("Soldiers of the Night" from Black Roses), it just feels too counterproductive to the cause. That and "After Midnight" are probably the better two songs here, since the others are fairly miserable in translation and weren't all that much fun in the first place...like the gang shouts coming in on "Partytime" over the guttural rasp.

I think the best outcome here is that people will track down the original material and enjoy it, which is more than likely what the members of Acid Witch intended all along; but beyond the fact the 12" has a pretty fun cover and will no doubt become a collector's item, I just can't recommend it. The production is alright, the instruments in the mix seem a little phoned in, and the delivery on some of the harsher vocal lines is pretty 'blah', and that's really one of the only areas in which they've tried to deviate from the originals. I don't mean to be terribly hard on it, since they're more or less just taking the piss, and I certainly share in their inspiration for those wonderful years and all the mystique that used to surround Halloween, metal music, etc when I was a pup in that decade. Hell, if you place nostalgia above all else, perhaps you'll take a lot more away from this than I did, but all it accomplished for me is wanting to hear more of Acid Witch in their native habitat. It's been about 5 years now, so I hope we won't be waiting too much longer for a new full-length of original material.

Verdict: Indifference [5/10]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Acid-Witch/146053698843172

Nunslaughter/Acid Witch - Spooky EP (2014)

The Spooky split assembles two of Hells Headbangers more distinct and entertaining acts into a union of what I would have assumed to be a contrast of the slower Acid Witch death/doom camp and the more blitzing death/thrash of Nunslaughter. Yet, to my shock, the choices on this EP really seem to complement one another, with the latter putting on the reins for some of their slower, chunkier, and Acid Witch revving up their engines for the closer on the B-side, which places them on an evil motorcycle pacing with the Catholic Church's favorite band. But beyond that, the material both of the band's is spewing forth here is among the best I've heard from them. Nunslaughter is on a tear, granted, their last record Angelic Dread kicking the cathedral doors down and shredding every habit in sight; but I just wasn't feeling the new Acid Witch EP covers EP much (more on that later), so it was a blast to hear that when it comes to their own material, they've certainly still got it.

The Acid Witch tracks are savage, organ-endowed paeans to darkness and damnation with a bit of that ol' tongue-in-cheek nature added in the lyrics and the stoner-Sabbath grooves that occasionally erupt in the rhythm guitars. "Evil" and "Fiends of Old" are mixed a little rough, giving them an airier garage quality, only if that garage was a co-op they were sharing with a serial killer wearing a clown mask and chainsaw in the 70s. The growls and organs in unison sound absolutely fucking amazing, and I hope a lot of this unhinged energy carries through to their next batch of original stuff. On the other hand, Nunslaughter has the tighter, cleaner production punch of the last album, so there is a little bit of disparity, the two bands don't blend so well in the mix alone. It's the style where it works, and "Spooky Tails" is just a slower, doom/thrash bit with a very simple hook and just blood-gorged vocals that reflect a lot of their Teutonic thrash and proto-death metal influences, with maybe even a little bit of a 90s Carcass thing in how the riff grooves. "A Sordid Past" is cast and carved from a similar vein, only with more gusto and triplet chugging.

It's only 12 minutes of music, but it's engaging and fun all the way throughout, nothing wearing its welcome thin and the cover art is just amazing, with that old horror vinyl cover finish and a colorful image that any creepy comic of the 60s or 70s would have been honored to bear. Except lyrics that focus heavily on Midwest death & thrash metal nostalgia, in particular "Fiends of Old" with a few shout outs to other bands. Nunslaughter have a lot of experience on splits, of course, but I believe this is a first for Acid Witch, and they pull out the tops. The songs might not always feature the catchiest riffs in existence, but both of the bands seem on top of their grisly games and constantly remind you what it is about them that you've ever found entertaining. If, in fact, you have. If NOT...well...you are one tough crowd, brothers and sister. Tough crowd.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Acid-Witch/146053698843172
http://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/nunslaughter-news.asp

Acid Witch - Stoned (2010)

Acid Witch are clearly onto something with their mix of classic horror and stoner aesthetics, beautifully realized and corny album covers, and downtrodden death/doom inspired by the legends of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Indeed, they produce the sort of works that one looks at and instantly associates with 'cool'. But the music itself, while clearly sniffing heretics down the right track, has yet to truly grip me. Witchtanic Hellucinations was a fun debut, showing sincere promise, but it left no lasting impression save to remember the band's name and uncanny visual knacks. The Witch House EP built upon this, with a few of their better songs, but the more recent Midnight Mass EP wasn't quite as good, and I was afraid we might encounter some pre-mature stagnation.

Well, the bruising sophomore Stoned proves that this is not the case, as it's the most coherent and musically satisfying offering the band have released to date. Sort of a poor man's Hooded Menace (not that much of a coincidence, as Lasse was once involved here), or a less depressing Electric Wizard, they riff through silly and classic horror concepts with real enthusiasm, taking subjects like Halloween rituals and dope smoking and writing up some decent lyrics to complement the music. They're not your average death/doom band, because they sauce up the metallic meat with a stoner rock influence, manifest through organs that feel like they belong to a Coven or Black Widow record, and it is this generational clash that helps them stand out from the faceless masses of dull funeral parlor death that have nothing stirring in their cauldrons.

"Satanic Faith" is a synthesizer intro piece which uses similar sampling to the intro of their Midnight Mass EP, but this time it pays off when the sludgy mono chords of the amusingly titled "Witchfynder Finder" erupt into big, simple chords that immediately transported me back to Monster Magnet's Superjudge, etc, but with the added advantage of the death barks. This is not the most powerful pick of the litter, an honor that I should instead bestow upon the carnal crush of "Live Forever", morose "Stoned to the Grave", or the balls out wrecking of "If Hell Exists". Rounding out the metal mass are pieces like the creepy, beautiful horror interlude "Whispers in the Dark" or the sample heavy groove bottomed "Thundering Hooves". Even the poorly titled "Metal Movie Marijuana Massacre Meltdown" has some heft to it (points for name dropping Lizzy Borden and Fastway), and the epic finale "Sabbath of the Undead" is likewise satisfactory.

But for all its improvements to the formula, better production, and so forth, Stoned does still lack in one particular space. The riffs here all fit the band's m.o.: huge, bludgeoning aspirations to the psyche. Unfortunately, they're really just not that great. Never once will you find a surprise lurking in any of the compositions. At best, the band will pull off a lead or organ sequence that conditions you to their overarching, ghoulish experience, but they just don't seem capable of writing a riff that will simmer your brain for long after the music dies. They're not boring, and they're not 'bad', but they seem redundant and familiar to the decades of doom metal we've already experienced. Without the atmospherics, they'd likely fall flat. Stoned, however, drowns itself in atmosphere, like an ungodly hybrid of Bongzilla, Cathedral and Runemagick, so as a whole, it delivers more entertainment than any of their prior releases, and comes the closest yet to honoring the band's visual spin with music of equal quality.

Verdict: Win [7.75/10] (I shall be a grim reminder)

http://www.myspace.com/acidwitch

Acid Witch - Midnight Mass EP (2010)

Midnight Mass is a 7" EP teaser to herald in the second coming of Michigan's Acid Witch, who released their fun debut Witchtanic Hellucinations in 2008, and another EP (Witch House) last year that marked a bit of progression in quality. The duo have moved from Razorback Records to Hell's Headbangers, another natural fit for their unapologetic, old school blend of crushing stoner riffs, classic horror and hypnotic PSA samples, and death/doom influences from both Europe and the States. If you can imagine a mash-up of Pentagram, Candlemass, Monster Magnet, Incantation and disEmbowelment, then Acid Witch has your ticket to limitless heathen burning and bong hymns.

Thankfully, Dave and Shagrat are not a bunch of snake oil salesmen, and the EP once again features exclusive material you won't find on their full-length. It's not exactly their best showing, and I preferred the material on the prior EP to this, but at the least it makes a swell collector's item if you're into collecting limited press records or nostalgic for this entire Hammer House inspired scene that has grasped the doom scene with its festering fingertips. The "Intro" is an extended sample dealing with the band's favorite subject: witch burnings, and then there are two new metal crushers in "Midnight Mass" and "To Magic, Sex and Gore". The former creates a simple, barbaric momentum, with playful organs drifting in below the weighty death growls and a pretty fun lead break, like a death metal Monster Magnet. I found "To Magic, Sex and Gore" to be the slightly better of the pair, with a great horror synth intro and then a big riff that almost reminds me of Metallica's "Sad But True" if it were played by Cathedral.

The production is as lo-fi as usual, but not so undercut that you won't revel in the mass walls of distortion that dowse the chords, or the slathered vocals which resonate all over the mix with both death grunts and black rasping. Musically, I can't say the value is high. Their newest album Stoned is loaded with songs better than these, and I can understand why the band would separate them. The riffs are not incredibly thoughtful or original, and despite the organs and classic lead sequences, they don't really offer much by way of ghastly, hidden delights. That said, the packaging is very attractive, especially the 'putrid' edition of the vinyl, and for these reasons, it's worth checking out if you are enamored of the band's morbid but colorful, comic book horror aesthetic. I love what Acid Witch is trying to do here, but I do wish the music would ascend to the level of the archaic visual imagery they conjure in their great lyrics and covers.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://www.myspace.com/acidwitch

Acid Witch - Witch House EP (2009)

Michigan's Acid Witch have decided to keep the coven's menstrual flow consistent with a limited run 7" EP featuring two new tracks in 2009. If you enjoyed the thick, pea soup broth of their first album Witchtanic Hellucinations, then I can see no reason why you wouldn't track this down (if you can find it). Both these tracks are pretty great additions to the witchography, the rival of anything found on the debut.

"Witch House" itself is a slab of molten hot, haunting sludge which uses keyboards to conjure an old school horror atmosphere that simply should not exist post early-80s. I've long been waiting for a band to mix such sounds, as the normal garden variety sludge/doom is more often boring than not, and Acid Witch definitely deliver a pleasing pie crust of the macabre. "Worship the Worm" is a libation to the lovely little parasites that will feast upon us and return us to the earth, captured in a few total stoner moments as the guitars trudge towards into some freaky, wailing melodies that lead us out from the EP.

Witch House is short, sure, just enough to keep you entertained for about 8:30 minutes and change, plus the inevitable replays. The mix is downtrodden and somewhat raw, which is all too fitting for their music, and the band's horror camp smut schtick is kept intact. Another of Razorback's stable of quality acts, it seems likely Acid Witch could continue to grow into one of the hidden treasures of US doom. There should be another EP (Midnight Mass) kicking its way forth from the grave soon, and hopefully the new year brings a new full length album.

Verdict: Win [7.5/10] (cyclopean monoliths and glowing prisms)

http://www.myspace.com/acidwitch

Acid Witch - Witchtanic Hellucinations (2008)

I was captured at first by the very colorful and cheesy cover art for this, and then realized it was on Razorback Records. Thus, my excitement grew in bounds, and ultimately I was not disappointed by the trio's brand of psychedelically imbued sludgy death/doom metal. Through the years, though, it seems like the album has been somewhat forgotten, perhaps because other bands have come along with similar trippy, tongue in cheek horror imagery, perhaps also because the morbid Michigan outfit has one upped itself. Now, with a reissue through Hell's Headbangers (who also released their latest, best full-length Stoned), those not in the know can experience the bludgeoning firsthand.

Acid Witch rocks, it's simple. They evoke colorful, humorous kitsch and imagery for this brand of doom in tracks like "Swamp Spells" and "Rabid Werewitch". The tunes have all the fuzz and groove you'd want from the sludge sect, but the dark brutal vocals of old school death and doom, as well as some ingrained, ambient atmospheres with guitars and samples, as on the intro to "Cauldron Cave". They don't shy away from the retro flavored lead work, and many of the trippy effects on the melodies often feel as if the guitars themselves are soaking up bong hits. But perhaps most importantly, they evoke fucking DOOM. It only takes a few chords, bends and slides in the right place and Acid Witch have managed to convert something so tongue in cheek into some real doom, at times reminding me of the local heroes Grief if they were dressed up as haunted house ushers. That this is all captured alongside song titles like "Broomstick Bitch" and "Witches Tits" is baffling but welcome.

Granted, there are a few riffing spells here which are admittedly dry and predictable, so Acid Witch is forced to leave a lot of the atmosphere up to the imagination of the listener, and you get enough variation between the sluggish, graveyard emanations and the uptempo outbursts. Most of all, lovers of ridiculous cult horror films, Hammer studios and so forth will admire the incorporation of organs and other schlock into the banging mix of balls out rock riffs and guttural frog inflection. I swear, the vocalist of this band was actually, at some point, the victim of some stereotypical witch transformation into an amphibian. Though it's only a few years old now, this was a pretty original band. If you're a fan of psychedelic crushers like Bongripper, or the horror lusting Razorback roster of Ghoul, Lord Gore, Crypticus, Frightmare, Blood Freak, etc you may want to check this out. If you're just into death and doom with a tinge of atmosphere and sludge, you DEFINITELY want it. One of the better bands of this style, along with Hooded Menace.

Verdict: Win [7.25/10]

http://www.myspace.com/acidwitch