Who?
Widdershins is a three-piece band from Rolle, a small town in Switzerland. Steve Navid, Mathieu Cacheux and Jérôme Poletti found the way to inject energy to the quiet and lovely Swiss landscapes with their music that mixes diverse psychedelic textures. Amor, their debut album, has a psychedelic and hypnotic playground for the senses, a liberating vibe and a good vibration.
How is it?
Amor is a six tracks album – or 50 minute - ride across Swiss valley - that is going to blow your mind and with no doubt will keep you on the move. The album starts with 'Heliopolis' and there's no soft start. The title meaning lead me to think about peaceful places where light and sun are the key players but from the first note it soon takes the flight pursuing the listener along the way with relentless power. This track exemplifies the psychedelic sounds and vocal harmonies that define the band.
Complex drum patterns and melodic guitar riffs dominate the whole album but in the following track, 'Persona', are louder, darker and more atmospheric. We are definitely in Amor's mood here.
'Dark Desires' shows the most atmospheric and dark side of the band. It flows very well with the melodic vocal before going into something that Widdershins demonstrates to be able to do: awesome wall of sounds, very spacey. This song stays stuck in your head, it has a great tune.
The following 'Seven Sister' continues pretty much in the same way as the previous tracks and somewhere the song become postrocky with layered guitars as the vocal's background.
The real gem of the album is 'Amor'. It starts with a weird sound and the first time I listened to it I felt like I accidentally was on another album. You are in your car and you have clear the road ahead. Music is everywhere and the pursuing guitar riffs give the rhythm to your ride. You cannot go out from that labyrinth of roads and the vocals are absolutely amazing and for me comparable to the epic voice of David Gahan. The repetitive rhythm will induce you to a trance. The closing is clear-cut. Great track.
Amor ends with the 15-minutes track 'Kingdom of Night'. Is this a track for the nighttime? If your idea of night is to have a long ride among incredible and psychedelic sounds, yes, you definitely have to wear your best headphones and keep this track with you. Although this song doesn't really stick out to me – I'm stuck on the previous track - but it's a good space rock song nonetheless.
Amor is a vertigo of sounds that traps you and keeps you alive and kicking with songs that changes tempos, rhythms, and dynamics quickly. In the end what do you expect from a band whose name means counterclockwise?
