Review Summary: A fun record with charm and atmosphere.
You are walking home from a Halloween party, coming down from your high at two in the morning. You continue toward your destination looking forward to going home, warming up some food, and passing out to a horror movie. Suddenly, after coming out of deep thought, debating whether to make some nachos or warm up a couple slices of pizza, you find yourself in the middle of a dark forest. After turning around and going back the way you came, you realize you are completely lost. Wandering through the woods, you start to become concerned. Not only is the forest creepy as hell, but you have no idea where you are or how you got here. As you wander you spot a cave with a light glowing inside. Curious, you venture closer. An evil cackle echoes through the cave as you peak inside. Eyes widened, you see a chamber within the cave, dimly lit by candles. A repulsive creature, a witch, stands in front of a cauldron brewing something vile. Against your better judgment you venture inside, drawn by the fumes emitting from the cauldron. The witch dips her finger into the disgusting brew, approaches you, and lets a drop of the green liquid drip from her finger onto your tongue…and the trip begins.
Witchtanic Hellucinations is quite the original fare. Acid Witch combines doom, psychedelic, stoner, punk, and death metal into one tightly knit package. One strong point of the album is that it is a good deal of fun, yet holds plenty of atmosphere. It has a cheesy, B-rated horror movie feel and creates the atmosphere of being in a cave or out in a swamp while tripping on acid. The production and guitar tone sounds murky and distorted. While this may be fun and not to be taken seriously, it is by no means a joke of an album. The band members wanted to make some good music, and that’s what they did. This album is riddled with great ideas, an example being on Swamp Spells. It begins with a sample of a boiling cauldron and a guitar with a psychedelic effect. A few songs begin with an eerie keyboard introduction, bringing thoughts of Halloween and autumn to mind, and that’s basically what these guys are all about. Halloween, horror, witches, drugs, and metal.
There is an abundance of good riffs, an example being on Into the Cave; this slow, grooving riff is probably one of the coolest riffs I have ever heard. I have smoked weed to this song and I’ll just say that it put me in the most chilled out mood I have ever been in. This album is great to smoke to, but it’s also an awesome album to play while in the act of making sweet, sweet love. I’m being completely serious. Go look up Into the Cave and listen to that riff and tell me that wouldn’t be awesome.
Being a great album, it doesn’t come without flaws. There is some filler: an unnecessary instrumental (I’m not talking about the intro, which is totally necessary), Rabid Werewitch (even though it does have a cool sample in the beginning) Witch’s Tits, and Broomstick Bitch. You could also consider the instrumental Realm of the Wicked to be filler (and it probably is), but it is forgiven because it has a foreboding tone to it and it’s pretty enjoyable. The only other flaw is the vocalist’s style. He is also the vocalist on Hooded Menace, which he does a great job on. However, on Witchtanic Hellucinations, it’s not as stellar of a performance. Still, he does his thing and doesn't ruin the music.
Witchtanic Hellucinations overflows with a certain charm. Don’t let the elitists talk you out of taking a listen, or you’ll be missing out. Just remember not to take this too seriously and you’ll realize this is a diamond in the rough.
