Dead Witches - Ouija

The good here is that this album smashes out of the gate, continuing from where Mark Greening’s previous outfits have left off (Ramesses included). The drums pound their way through each song, and after listening to the whole thing through for the first time it’s really apparent this record is hugely rhythm-centric. It’s not a negative. It worked for Kiss on ‘Creatures of the Night’ and Metallica on ‘…And Justice for All’ and it works here. The bad is pretty obvious from the off. Whilst it’s clear that Dead Witches would be well worth watching in a live environment due to the bombastic drumming and swampy guitar tones whipping up the audience into a trance like state, in the studio the lack of invention within the songs themselves leaves the album feeling flat. If it wasn’t for Viginia Monti’s distinctive vocals you could easily mistake it for some outtakes of either With the Dead or early Electric Wizard that were not quite up to scratch. There is nothing new brought to the plate here which is a real shame. Now for the ugly. And it’s a wonderful ugly. The production on ‘Ouija’ is proper awful. It’s muddy and clunky and raw as hell. It may not make up for the lack of originality in the songwriting but it sure makes this debut stand out amongst the hundreds of other doom metal albums that are released week in and week out these days. It feels punk and ‘real’ and that isn’t common in this day and age in the metal world.

Track Listing:-

1 Intro
2 Dead
3 Drawing Down the Moon
4 Ouija
5 Mind Funeral
6 A World of Darkness

Band Links:-

https://en-gb.facebook.com/DeadWitches

Label Links:-

http://www.heavypsychsounds.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOU
https://twitter.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUND
https://www.youtube.com/user/MonoStere
https://instagram.com/heavypsychsounds