Witchcult Today

By the time of this record Electric Wizard had softened their production somewhat — "softened" being entirely relative here — and the result is a slightly more psychedelic shade of doom, one that allows the 1970s occult rock influences to breathe more openly alongside the suffocating heaviness. The title track moves through a structure that feels almost hymn-like in its repetition, a slow chant to something pre-Christian and malevolent, with Oborn's guitar weaving melodic lines that nod explicitly to vintage Black Sabbath while remaining unmistakably the band's own. The vocals have a theatrical quality here, leaning into the witch-cult mythology with genuine conviction rather than ironic distance. There is a warmth to the distortion on this record that was absent from the rawer earlier work — still crushing, still overwhelming, but with an amber glow rather than a grey one. The tempo rarely exceeds a funeral march, yet the song never feels static; dynamics shift within the sludge, verses pulling back slightly before the chorus weight reasserts itself. This is music for anyone who has ever found horror aesthetics genuinely comforting — who gravitates toward the dark corner of the room not from despair but from a sense that something honest lives there.