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WITCHROT
Soul Cellar

Fuzzed And Buzzed / Majestic Mountain (2025)
Rating: 7.5/10

Toronto, Ontario-based Witchrot impressed me in 2021 with their debut full-length album Hollow. It was a fuzzed-up and stoned slab of doomy psychedelia led by the mesmeric tones of Lea Reto. Okay, so it wasn’t spellbinding with any sort of originality because, as you should know, there are a million bands of this ilk around. Even so, Witchrot were and still are simply better than most, even if they don’t do much to stand out from the crowd of similar occultists.

With Witchrot there’s less Satan and more smoke as the Canadian band traipse rather casually through sun-blazed savannahs and dusty back roads. Somehow, though, Witchrot incorporates elements of 90s female grunge, a slight injection of Goth 80s and a fuzzier version of American indie rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs, mostly due to the vocal wails.

Not exactly dense in its riffs but still thick like clouds of purple smoke, Soul Cellar inhales and exhales in equal psyched out measure. Opener ‘Possession Deepens’ boasts a hazy, languid style caressed by Lea’s mix of haunting and erotic wails. It’s as if she is some tormented yet enticing spirit writhing in her own slippery coils and wailing out to sea. Amidst the misty swirl of zoned out riffs a snaking solo nods towards the kaleidoscopic horizons of the late 60s. ‘Tombstoned’, however, floats by with a more contemporary edge, jabbing with its sticks and clashing with the cymbals, all to the ecstatic moans of Reto.

Swaggering through its own distortion field, Soul Cellar does offer a few dreamier tones (‘Green River’) circa Black Sabbath at their most subtle and the soundtrack to surreal television series Twin Peaks. Don’t expect that standard doom plod though, Witchrot exist beyond the occult connotations of their name by constructing those buzzing and mournful yet hypnotic slabs of fuzz rock.

‘Throat Cutter’ stands out due to moments of stark melancholy and colossal oozing. The sound is black, cold and expansive; yawning like some cosmic void entranced by its own abyssal majesty. ‘Spineless’ is equally brooding in the vocal department; Lea at times has a Brody Dalle (The Distillers) tone although not matching the roughness. Considering how initially simple all this fuzz sounds this is far from being an instantly accessible outing. Instead, there’s an arduous nature to its thickness even if it’s not at all blubbery.

As the title track slithers through further treacle tarred avenues I’m of the realisation that I may have to pay several visits in order to fully grapple with the fuzztones this album offers, but for now a strong 7.5/10 seems fair enough for this sizzling slog.

Neil Arnold

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