Exclusive Track Premiere: Void Witch’s “Second Demon”
Flay my gooseflesh.
On July 26, Texas death/doomers Void Witch will release their much anticipated debut full-length Horripilating Presence on esteemed Everlasting Spew Records. Like a cemetery’s worth of bodies being dumped into Barton Springs, this Austinian 4-piece splashed onto the scene in 2022 with their well-received self-titled EP. Combining ghoulish storytelling, mournful solos, clanging bells, chugging riffs, and a mic-swallowing growl, the Void Witch EP was a rough-and-ready, tough-and-heady catacombic delight.
Two years later and Void Witch has only gotten better at writing hair-raising fright-night tombstone tunes. With the titular “Horripilating Presence” already stalking the world in all its Hooded Menace glory, it’s high time we reanimated another riff-caked corpse and brought forth the stinking second single “Second Demon.” The zippiest track of Void Witch’s career so far, “Second Demon” is a comparative speed demon, keeping up an almost torrid mid-paced lurch throughout and ensuring that even those most liable to turn their noses up at the death/doom genre tag will have their headless torsos body-banging in the graveyard.
And, look, I might be exaggerating a bit, but anything faster than a creeping crawl might give someone whiplash. “Second Demon” is replete with pungent riffs, malodorous rhythms, and a sneering pugnacity that is as foul-mooded as it is foul-smelling. But it’s not all brainless skull-smashing: there’s a melodic old school sensibility festering at the frayed edges of the track, perhaps most notable in the harmonization and final throwback solo. This is the kind of track that shows just how much fun death/doom can be, even if we’re all sitting around having a very bad time.
If you can feel your “futile bones creak / towards the endless toil,” then I suggest you “push through the shroud of filth” that is your life and push play on the track below.
That’s better. Or is it? Just as you feel your plight cresting, just as you feel the pain and sorrow of your backbreaking travails slowly sloughing away… “something on the horizon waits.” Best of luck.
Horripilating Presence arrives via
Everlasting Spew on July 26th.
