A
stoner/doom trio from Illinois is how Earth Witch are
described and it is very accurate! Their debut album “Out of the Shallow” is most definitely for fans of Sleep, High on Fire and The Sword. There are massive riffs on offer and the
tracks have quite a range to them, too. You get mellow and bluesy swaggering
muscular grooves and psychedelic Sabbath goodness elsewhere.
Simply
put Earth Witch have delivered one of the albums
of the year, every track is a winner. Every riff is massive. The production is
raw and warm. Everything sounds big. Everything sounds heavy and for that Earth Witch need to be applauded for delivering a fantastic and heavy record and
today it is our great pleasure to welcome the band to talk us through their top
5 stoner doom albums, as
we take our weekly trip into the extreme and turn the volume all the way up to
11. Why do we go to 11, because its one louder
Kyuss really started to come into their own on "Welcome to Sky Valley", their third full length and first with member changes and being on a major label. I mean, "Blues for the Red Sun" is equally killer, but "Welcome..." encompasses all of the best song writing elements the desert rockers had been honing in on. While Queens of the Stone Age emerged out of its ashes (and was actually my introduction to the band), they never really could get back that "desert rock" vibe that still puts Kyuss at the top of the fuzzed out stoner rock genre. I love driving across the literal desert and jamming this on tour, specifically "100 degrees" - a short n' sweet banger. Has that loner rebel feel to it, while still most definitely makes you want to head bang right into the van's dashboard. Might be why so many bands try to copy their sound to this day. I reach for this record before QOTSA, Fu Manchu, Hermano, or any of the other killer projects that have come after. This one hits the spot every damn time. - Nathan
Kyuss - "Welcome to Sky Valley"
Kyuss really started to come into their own on "Welcome to Sky Valley", their third full length and first with member changes and being on a major label. I mean, "Blues for the Red Sun" is equally killer, but "Welcome..." encompasses all of the best song writing elements the desert rockers had been honing in on. While Queens of the Stone Age emerged out of its ashes (and was actually my introduction to the band), they never really could get back that "desert rock" vibe that still puts Kyuss at the top of the fuzzed out stoner rock genre. I love driving across the literal desert and jamming this on tour, specifically "100 degrees" - a short n' sweet banger. Has that loner rebel feel to it, while still most definitely makes you want to head bang right into the van's dashboard. Might be why so many bands try to copy their sound to this day. I reach for this record before QOTSA, Fu Manchu, Hermano, or any of the other killer projects that have come after. This one hits the spot every damn time. - Nathan
The Sword - "Age
of Winters"
Nathan
Sleep - “Holy
Mountain”
Danava - "Hemisphere of Shadows"
Our drummer has long been involved in running his own independent label and
distributing a variety of tape and vinyl releases. During a period where he was
operating his own store front in Illinois he had become quite the authority in
turning us all on to the best records and one such day he suggested “Hemisphere of Shadows” by Danava and I promptly purchased it. I got home to give it a
listen and could not believe the amount of riffs this band could cram into
their songs. Their guitar sound was really unique compared to most heavy bands
sporting tones with crushing amounts of distortion and gain, Danava had a more classic slightly driven crunchy tone and
derived more of their heavy qualities from the precision and intricacy of their
riffs. The record was definitely inspiring to Earth Witch
as we moved from our early primarily doom focused sound to a more intricate
riff laden heavy rock. The record also set some aspirations for how I wanted to
approach recoding. One of my favorite tracks on the record is “I Am The Skull” which has an awesome
break where they shift into this sweet keyboard solo. Ever since I heard that
track I had to write a song with a keyboard solo, even if it was just for the
studio recording I had to do something cool like that. -Ivan
Harvey Milk - “A
Small Turn of Human Kindness"
Individually the members of our band sport quite an eclectic range of musical tastes from bands like Converge to Captain Beefheart or Christian Death to Husker Du. I recall about six years ago I was on a kick of listening to exclusively weird avant garde and noise rock type music. Nothing but Naked City, Captain Beefheart, US Maple and Ruins (
