Remade Incantations

Though British trio Esben and The Witch consistently draw on the ancient, esoteric and ethereal to fill out their slow, brooding doom rock, they have always opted to throw fair handfuls of modern touches–such as digital drums kits, electro-industrial squeals and retro synthesizers–into their echoey dirges. But all the new-fangled subtleties that once worked to tie the group to the here-and-now seem to have either organically dissolved or been knowingly ejected from 2016’s fittingly titled Older Terrors. As a rule of thumb, whenever one notices that a full-length LP is entirely composed of songs that top ten minutes in length, he or she should anticipate a druidic listening experience

The monolithic “Sylvan” will feel pretty familiar to fans, with Rachel Davies’ vocals closely resembling PJ Harvey, as they hover over the lone tom drum, dictating the trudge’s glacial pace. Delicate, ‘verb-soaked guitar plucking soon gives way to doomy, Electric Wizard-style distortion–soon, here, being a solid eight minutes into the opener. One will catch lines about “fire snakes” and “forest screams,” as Esben emulate their ancestor Hawkward’s lyrical strategy of matter-of-factly describing otherworldly phenomena with declarative sentences. The gloomy classical guitar chords and incessant ride cymbal clang that marks “Marking the Heart of a Serpent” call to mind the droning mantras of Al Cisneros’s OM. Over halfway into “Marking,” the mix finally becomes meaty and chunky for a period that is longer than twenty seconds; Esben briefly step out from behind the wall of musical fog with syncopated percussion and a maelstrom of tremolo guitar shrieks and ghostly howling. “The Wolf’s Sun” serves as an even louder, more lucid wake up call to those who might have dozed off. The cut features a Blondie or Siouxsie and the Banshees-esque post-punk bop, featuring a jumpy yet distinctively muddy bass line.  And it truly is a delight to hear something so lively amidst the glum, shaded wood which Esben and The Witch make their home–or hovel, rather. This moment of clarity is more than refreshing, and culminates in a crunchy climax.

With Older Terrors, Esben and the Witch achieve something unique and heretofore unseen. Their record is doom-laden, bleak and foreboding in many of the same ways that an offering from a traditional metal group might be (something Esben definitely are not). It features loud guitars and ominous, evil moments, but its songs are never really heavy. Esben and The Witch seem to have some difficulty seizing their moments, the ones in which they finally come up for air from under the waters of gloomy attrition to really rock out. Many of the passages that should feel more jarring and rattling to provide a contrast from the swirling haze, instead merely drift along with the rest of Older Terror‘s sprawling soundscapes. It doesn’t stop the record from feeling satisfying, but it is enough to get us to wonder about the artists’ actual intent. But hey, Older Terrors has got a lot more to offer than mere ball-tingling heaviness; any neanderthal with a Marshall stack and a Boss pedal can do that. Esben and The Witch showcase compositional talent, excellent singing and some real imagination, which is more than you can say for the average true doom group.