Artist: Depressive Witches
Country: France
Label: Self-Released
Formats: CD
Year: 2024
On the band’s first two albums, ‘Bad Flask’ (2021) and ‘Distant Kingdoms’ (2022) the two French brothers of Depressive Witches already tried to prepare humanity for something seriously different. The way that they combine impeccable musicianship with a quirky sort of tongue-in-cheek humour has, as far as I know, no equal in the current Black Metal scene.
As with their previously released albums, much of the music of Depressive Witches is unmistakably built upon rudimentary Heavy Metal basics, hell, ‘Controversial Rock’n’Roll’ even starts with the opening riff of AC/DC’s ‘TNT’. Yet, the epic riffing is also still reminiscent on that of later Immortal, together blending into something that is a pretty naturally flowing amalgam that could easily be classified as Epic Black Metal. In fact, it doesn’t sound all too far away from what Abbath did in his short lived other project called I. Especially in the opening tune of ‘Protected By Death And Sorcery’ there is an evident parallel to be drawn to much of what was heard on ‘Between Two Worlds’ (2006), the only ever released I-album. The occasional clean vocals and the great Heavy Metal leads are the proverbial icing to the cake on ‘Lost, Forgotten And Heartbroken’.
Yet, I am quite sure that it will not only be the very well executed music that is grabbing the attention. The catchy hooks in the music comes together with many equally catchy choruses that, again, behold much of that particular sense of humour. With tracks like the extremely catchy ‘All My Girlfriends Are Dead’ or ‘Wasted Witches’ the band moves in the same lyrical regions of bands like Type O Negative or even Australia’s Blood Duster.
Because of their lyrical content and the super catchiness of the music, I still think a significant part of the potential listenership will be turned off by this. But on the other hand, there is also a whole new generation of fans who may dislike all the beaten-down genre aesthetics and will love Depressive Witches in all its glorious entirety. However you slice it, these two guys absolutely know how to write a catchy piece of music!
