Gritty, dirty, heavy, crunchy, and that's just a description of the band members of WITCHSKULL. Their music is that and so much more. From the opening chug of a Les Paul making a Marshall its love toy on the opening song "Raven" I knew I was in for something special. Raw and stripped to its basics this band does not play simple music. They simply took the best of metal, and through the blues in to give it a magnificent groove that I can't stop listening to. "Son of the Snake" opened with a beautiful harmony between Marcus De Pasquale's guitar and Tony McMahon's grungy Rickenbacher that shows how much they really understand cord layering. When the vocals kicked in, I wanted to break things, in a good way! This song was a lesson on how to be heavy and the fast section... wow!

"Priestess" showed how big a sound can be made with just 3 guys, a guitar and bass cranked to eleventy thousand, a three piece drum set and a shit load of attitude. We don't need no stinking effects rack, away with you! "Breathing Blue Light" starts with an unforgettable riff, throws a few timing and style changes at it till it's almost unrecognizable, then without you noticing your back on the original riff again. Brilliant! Marcus has a voice that seems to be bordering on breaking into a full scream while just belting out the verse, and when he finally cuts it loose, it is a scream worthy of the name. Joel Green's drumming sounds deceptively simple but on closer examination he's expertly leading the groove and by simply changing where the snare hits are, changing the direction he band is heading, such as in the transition on "Spyres".

If you are learning how to play metal, these guys are a masterclass of how to do it. "Lord of the Void" starts off with an almost jazz/swing feel to it, with the bass doing what I call "bouncing the root". The change up to full on metal is seamless and unexpected. The finale, "The Empty Well" was perfectly dark and brooding, even when the tempo change hit at midpoint. WITCHSKULL's second album "Coven's Will" leaves me wondering though, is it Doom Metal or Stoner Metal, or a glorious merging of the two? In the end I truly don't care, I know I've now found the album I'm crashing on my patio with this summer, enjoyables on the table beside me, neighbors listening to it whether they like it or not. I Know I'm enjoying it!