Initial Impressions: Witchsorrow: Witchsorrow

Witchsorrow is a traditional doom metal band from the U.K. This is the band's first album released on the label Rise Above, a label that has been making pretty big waves in the doom metal genre with groups like Electric Wizard, Ghost, Blood Ceremony, Witchcraft, and others.

Witchsorrow is a power trio utilizing crushing, yet agonizingly slow riffs. The band sounds a lot like the latter five tracks off of Reverend Bizarre's second album. All doom and gloom. The band does use guitar solos from Necroskull to add a little color to the otherwise bleak and destroyed sound. The riffs are bottom-heavy and very distorted. "Thou Art Cursed" stands out as the most somber of the songs, particularly in the early minutes.

The band does occasionally pick up speed, proving that they are not a monotonous band. However, they rarely do anything extra when they do pick up speed. The most obvious example is toward the end of "The Trial of Elizabeth Clarke" where they pick up a lot of speed, but revert back to the slow and gloomy riffs of the beginning of the track. "Gomorrah" is the fastest track on the album, though it could never be mistaken for speed metal. It does however, also slow way down several times, but otherwise is propelled by a Sabbathian galloping riff.

Vocalist Necroskull delivers the vocals in a dry, deathly groan. Occasionally the urgency in the vocal delivery increases and Necroskull is found yelling, but for the most part, his vocal style does not change.

There are only five songs on the album, and yet the album is nearly 50 minutes long, so obviously all of the songs are epic in length. This is not necessarily surprising given the style of metal though, so it is certainly not a complaint. Witchsorrow has found a way to make slow and plodding doom metal interesting enough to not lose the listener's attention, despite the length of the tracks.

Overall, I came away very impressed. There have been a lot more doom metal bands appearing of late. I do not think we have reached the saturation stage in this where there are too many yet, but it may not be long. As it stands right now, I do enjoy listening to new traditional doom metal bands, and that certainly includes Witchsorrow.