Review Summary: Yes, I can smell it on you. The power of my blood will purge that filth and make you whole again
It's nice to see a dungeon synth following on this site after all these years and in spirit of things I'd like to bring up a fascinating tribe by the name of Witches Moon. Hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina, this mysterious horde stylishly creates quirky fantasy realm landscapes with an underlying layer of black metal with all the fixings. Colorful artwork, whimsical song/album titles, ambitious synthesizers, a full house of vocals and a purple velvet blanket of anonymity. I could't have had a better day to have off work to write this. Today has the perfect atmosphere for dungeon synth metal. It's raining and thundering outside, nobody's around, I've been playing Skyrim all day pantsless, I've been eating macaroni cheese, yeah, it's a good day.
The Grim Botanical is Witches Moon's third full-length record and it's a star studded affair of zazz. Opening with the chime laden page turner of an intro in The Craft, Witches Moon craft a diabolically delicious cocktail of dungeon synth with copious shots of black metal weaving in and out of the songs. The keys are the driving force of the record but the backing metal instrumentation is a solid right hand man, smoothly adding melody, aggression or a rocking groove whenever some extra flourishes are needed on the spot. Witches Moon create a truly remarkable atmosphere thanks in no small part to the swirling synths which flow like water. The mood shifts from dark to light and the tempos vary between ominous and serene which stirs my imagination. Some times you feel like you're about to have your body ritually sliced open and drained of blood by Castle Volkihar's resident vampires and other times you feel like prancing around through Eldergleam Sanctuary. The closing track, Call of the Void, strangely has me picturing a friendly Pennywise the Clown offering up a nice cup of yerba mate and deep, celestial conversation. The vocals are the third spoke on the botanical wheel. Alternating between harsh male vocals and clean male/female vocals, the vocals add a nice touch of pagan, ceremonial flair to the backdrop.
My macaroni's getting cold but if you like symphonic black metal and dungeon synth then you should give this a spin.
