Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
Wow! There is a lot of activity currently happening within the camp of Canberra, Australia’s retro-heavy doom-mongers WITCHSKULL.
First is the band’s fiercely anticipated sophomore effort, ‘Coven’s Will’, which is arriving from Rise Above Records on June 2nd and is streaming now! Yes, the entire new opus is being rolled out in all of its gloriously old-school excess and occult permanence.
Bombastically unwavering and matter-of-fact, ‘Coven’s Will‘ is a dense slab of the finest stoner/doom emanations. Simply put, the album is phenomenal and absolutely going to blow away fans of the band and underground music in general.
Band members commented the following:
“From the start we only wanted to play primal music from the gut,” asserts drummer Joel Green. “We all have very similar tastes from our youth, so it was easy to focus on what we grew up on… and put our own spin on it. There was no specific direction, just anything that was heavy with a healthy dose of groove and swagger! It all came pretty naturally, we just let the songs evolve over time in rehearsals and they kind of arrange themselves.“
As for specific influences on their new, sophomore record, frontman/ guitarist Marcus De Pasquale adds,
“The occult, fantasy, dreams, the moon and the elements, isolation, loneliness, depression, mental illness, regret and time… all the good, bleak things in life!”
Dive into the stream of the album below while you can find ‘Coven’s Will‘ available for purchase now at THIS LOCATION.
But guess what? The wonderful abundance of WITCHSKULL news items does not end there, friends! The label STB Records is re-issuing ‘The Vast Electric Dark’, the band’s groundbreaking, critically-embraced 2016 debut to coincide with the new album’s arrival.
The new edition features the same beautiful cover art as the original, pressed on reddish-black, cloudy-haze vinyl and limited to just 250 copies worldwide. These will go fast once the “STB Saturday” pre-order sale for the limited reissue of WITCHSKULL‘s ‘The Vast Electric Dark’ begins at noon EST this Saturday, June 2nd right HERE.
In closing, WITCHSKULL will play several Album Release / Launch shows in July:
July 06 @ Transit Bar, Canberra, AU [INFO]
July 14 @ Bendigo Hotel, Collingwood, Victoria, AU [INFO]
July 20 @ The Bald-Faced Stag, Sydney, AU [INFO]
July 27 @ Crowbar, Fortitude Valley, AU [INFO]
