PSYCHEDELIC WITCHCRAFT have had a lofty and impressive rise, quickly gaining a sizeable following with their brand of Doom, Blues and Psychedelic music. Since their formation little over a year ago, the band have released an excellent EP, "Black Magic Man", which was released to great reviews from fans and critics alike. Now, little over a year since that EPs release, the Italian outfit are back with their debut record, "The Vision", which shows the bands sound expand and grow, resulting in an incredibly impressive debut album that should grab the attention of any die hard fans of Hard Rock and Psychedelic atmospheres.

"A Creature", this records opening offering, is a really solid piece of music, with some excellent vocals and great guitar hooks providing plenty of great moments that grab the listeners attention straight away. It's a very good track, which captures a lot of the more mellow and measured aspects of Psychedelic music in amongst some killer Rock music. "Witches Arise" is another brilliant, if more or less straight forward, song with a strong Bluesy edge and powerful drumming, with an impressive guitar solo that really illustrates how versatile and talented Jacopo Fallai is as a musician. "Demon Liar", with its powerful, galloping riffs and soaring vocals, provides a really fuzzy, energetic flair to the album that helps raise the musical bar significantly, both in terms of musicianship and intensity. "Wicked Ways" ups the ante with regards to distortion and psychedelic flourishes, and we get treated to brilliantly hazy and atmospheric piece of music that brings the first half of the album to a close in a sea of distortion and atmospheric singing.

"The Night", is, by comparison with the rest of the record up until this point, a slightly more brooding and darker affair, with a more mid-paced musical approach and suitably impressive vocals. "The Only One That" takes the music in a much different direction to the rest of the album, taking a much lighter, softer and almost ballad like approach to the music. The tone is much less distorted, the music on all fronts is far more measured and the vocals are given much more room to come to the forefront and carry the song. "War" takes the music back towards the raging Hard Rock riffs that have characterised the bulk of this record, with confident, blues inspired riffs and pattering drums creating an excellent backdrop to the always sweet and infectious vocal patterns. The albums penultimate track, "Different", is a great song with some genuinely catchy guitar hooks and the sort of powerful, hair-raising vocal performances that listeners have come to expect by this point on the record. The ninth and final song on this record, "Magic Hour Blues", which also serves as the albums lead single, is a much more measured affair, and has a strong, climactic feel to it that makes it an excellent closing effort. It brings together all the best things about this record, from the amazing vocals to the psychedelic, Blues inflected guitar hooks, meaning that this album ends on a really solid high note, leaving the listener wanting to hear more.

This is a really strong debut record which shows plenty of promise. There are points where there's a feeling that the band could have been more adventurous with the instrumentation, and injected their music with a few more riffs, but luckily the vocal performers on all the tracks on this record is so good that this point is almost obsolete. This is thirty five minutes of great Psychedelic Hard Rock that does a great job of showcasing the bands many strengths, laying the foundations for what will hopefully be an impressive and interesting journey down the Occult Rock path.