Release Date: Oct 21, 2022
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Music for Nations
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Highly contagious Congregation might be Witch Fever's first full-length, but the British collective have already found their sound. Fusing punk attitude and energy, grunge riffs, Gothic sensibilities, and occasional doom metal textures, their music is unrelenting, driven forward by head-bangable instrumentation and Amy Walpole's singular vocals, always powerful and occasionally unhinged. This is gritty and passionate music, filled with outrage at some of the usual suspects: entrenched patriarchy, organized religion, reactionary politics, and the like.
Pressing play on Witch Fever's debut is akin to the quartet grabbing you by the throat and thrashing you left to right for an exhilarating 40 minutes. In other words, it rocks. Whether something truly rocks or not is often hard to quantify, with many a band over the years foolishly mistaking pure volume and pedestrian pedal use to equal 'rock.' The bruising thirteen tracks offered by these Mancunian maniacs make me want to set something on fire – which means it's hitting just right.
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