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Like many things in life I never knew I needed “goth-stoner-doom and new wave all blended together” until I stumbled across a track called ‘Needless Needle’ by Italian outfit Witches Of Doom (Great Name) and became hooked immediately.
The track in question takes most of its inspiration from Paradise Lost circa One Second as the heavily gothic charged melodic guitar lines open in dramatic style and weave their way throughout while vocalist Danilo “Groova” Piludu channels his inner Nick Holmes over the crunching chorus chug; it’s expertly put together and also catchy as hell.
So, what does the rest of debut album Obey have to offer? Plenty more great songs inspired by 90’s alt and goth rock as it turns out (and this is no bad thing when done right) that rattles through at a good pace with verve, character and energy.
Although country slide guitar initially greets us on opening track ‘The Betrayal’ it isn’t long before booming deep vocals reminiscent of Peter Steel (Type O Negative) greet us to forewarn the imminent arrival of a thunderous stoner rock RIFF, which propels the song forward with Frederico switching between a harsh shout and deep goth vocal style in the verse and chorus.
‘Witches of Doom’ is pure metal as it fuses elements of Ozzy Osbourne and NIN together to surprising affect, while ‘To The Bone’ takes the grunge path with bursts gothic guitar riffs and organ synths spicing up proceedings.
The afore mentioned grandiose ‘Needles Needle’ makes its presence known and becomes a beacon of sorts between the initial burst of alt metal and the more prevalent gothic and doom influences on the tracks that follow especially as it is immediately followed by the dramatic piano led power ballad ‘Crown of Thorns’.
‘The Dance of the Dead Flies’ and ‘Rotten to the Core’ combining gothic theatrics and grinding stoner rock RIFFS to great effect, the former containing a beast of a filthy bass line to boot!
‘It’s My Heart (Where I Feel The Cold)’ is another dramatic power balls featuring lots of piano and crashing power chords.
After these entire great straight up songs they close up in low key fashion with the rather bizarre title track which begins a touch of prog noodling that eventually leads into a section of big keyboards and grinding power chords suggesting a suitable OTT and dramatic finish before deviating into spoken word section that eventually fizzles out with further prog noodling.
Oh well 8 and a half cracking songs out of 9 isn’t bad I guess….
