Sweden’s WITCHCRAFT befuddled us all last year, their debut album conjuring images of Roky Erickson and Bobby Liebling accidentally booked to play the same “at ease weekend” gig. Only the MAHARAJAS record eclipsed last year’s effort in the Swedes-in-crushed-velvet category that seems to be growing of late.

Well now they’re back, ardently avoiding the sophomore slump with a collection of tracks that swell with more cross-wearing, candle burning lamentations than a friars convention. This outing finds Magnus and crew extending their prog antennae just a touch, as evidenced during the TULL-ish interludes of “Mr. Haze” and the short, potent instrumental, “Merlin’s Daughter”, which touches earth somewhere between “Close to the Edge” and RAINBOW’s take on “Still I’m Sad.”

But it isn’t these new colors that qualify the follow-up for the cement room-echo hall of fame. It’s the perceptiveness of the early Iommi worship. “Queen of Bees” waxes back to those late 60s B&W films of a drunken teenage Ozzy, sputtering out “Blue Suede Shoes” and “War Pigs” in a tiny pub. Sure, the lyrics are somewhat hokey (“weaving dreams like a fairy spider” – do those things wear boots?), but really anyone who’d have trouble getting into this mad brew of NECROMANDUS worship should just give up on the whole metal thing, grab their stamp collection, and head back to the Macarena line. The bonus cover of PENTAGRAM’s “When the Screams Come” is so close to the mark, I started drawing little rams heads on my notebook. Bring on the vinyl!

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: www.witchcrafthome.com

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: I See a Man

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