The mighty Witchsorrow return with their latest record The Devil And All His Works and it is a riff heavy album that encapsulates all that is so enjoyable about heavy music. It has a good touch of the occult in there as well for good measure, and the results are the doom metal trio being in top form throughout.
It all starts, appropriately enough, at ground zero for heavy metal, with the opening track of the album ‘Omnia Finiuntur’ evoking the spirit of where it all began, the eponymous opening track on the eponymous debut album from the immortal Black Sabbath, with the sinister ringing of a bell signalling the riff heavy chaos that is to come, and come it most certainly does.
Just the way ‘Black Sabbath’ exploded into life, after the initial macabre proceedings, ‘Omnia Finiuntur’ follows a similar path and this sets the whole crushing tone for the record, and it seems extra fitting that The Devil And All His Works is released almost literally a year to the day since Ozzy and Sabbaths triumphant farewell at Back To The Beginning, and it seems that Witchsorrow, two decades into their musical voyage, are taking doom metal on another journey in their own way.
What follows is no less intense than this dominating opening salvo and married a perfect mix of heaviness and catchiness. From the groovily decadent headiness of ‘Bacchus’ and the high octane ‘Hades Chains’ (which features the talents of Serena Cherry from Svalbard) to the slowed down hypnotic grooves of ‘Altar’ and the stomp of ‘In Triumph We Rot!’, it’s a non-stop and unrelenting feast of doom laden metal glory.
The atmospheric ‘Lamentation’ allows you to catch your breath a little after the onslaught that has preceded it and acts as a fine interlude before the finale of ‘A Quintessence Of Dust’ see things off in a fitting style, and features a guest guitar solo from Sammy Urwin from Employed To Serve to boot.
With this album, and much like Sabbath, Cathedral and Electric Wizard before them, Witchsorrow have turned a cult following into something bigger as the songs on The Devil And All His Works are monetised and perfectly executed examples of prime doom metal.
