Worlds Unreal
The Making of Witchcraft’s Witchcraft

Singer/guitarist Magnus Pelander approached Witchcraft with a documentarian’s eye from the start. “Witchcraft” is the first song on Witchcraft by the band Witchcraft, with Pelander drawing the listener’s attention with a simple invocation during the intro: “Witchcraft, take one.” Like everything else on the album, the decision to leave this dialogue snippet in as a symbolic territorial marker was a deliberate and intentional act. But it’s also fascinating to chart how radically Witchcraft have evolved since their inception, with six subsequent full-lengths featuring six different lineups, each offering six contrasting “takes” on the band’s synthesis of heaviness and psych-folk atmospherics.

Witchcraft owes its lifeblood to Pentagram, particularly the framing of the late ’90s and early ’00s compilations that reintroduced the world to the doom band’s early 1970s recordings. This is echoed in the choice of covers: the ultra-obscure “Please Don’t Forget Me,” which Bobby Liebling wrote as a 16-year-old, and (on subsequent versions of the album) an extra bookend in the form of “Yes I Do.” And it’s certainly there in the tone of the album, which has the warmth and immediacy of a band recording vintage-sounding songs on actual vintage amps and equipment, live to reel-to-reel tape, soaking up all of the ambiance of playing together in one room.

Pelander also channels Liebling’s fragility and vulnerability in his own vocals, although listeners are encouraged to focus on the way Pelander sings, not so much what he’s singing about. He evolved into a stronger, more confident lyricist later, and is now less reliant on reverb (like on “The Snake”) to capture a mood. The lyrics on Witchcraft that aren’t steeped in Arthurian legend, like “I Want You to Know” and “Please Don’t Forget Me,” seem to relate far more to meta-anxiety about how Witchcraft would be perceived. Of course, the sequencing of this album helps to counter that, with a slow-burn build towards the flashier parts, like the extended jam at the end of “You Bury Your Head” and the haunting arrangement of “Her Sisters They Were Weak” with flute and backmasked vocals.

When it comes to occult rock revivalism, there is Witchcraft and there’s everyone else. Many bands have pored over the practical blueprint of Witchcraft and offered subtle enhancements that suggest that there’s more than one way to interpret the gray matter of proto-doom, but this merry combo of Swedish analog enthusiasts were so far ahead of their time that it has taken everyone else two decades just to catch up. Including Decibel, who is now attempting to right a wrong after omitting Witchcraft in its own 2004 year-end list in favor of a bunch of icky metalcore albums that have all aged as gracefully as a stripper with a lower back tattoo. Whereas Witchcraft is tethered to a very specific time and place, but sounds timeless—another extraordinary feat from a band that even makes being cool seem effortless. Witchcraft Hall of Fame, take one.

Need more classic Witchcraft? To read the entire six-page story, featuring interviews with the members who performed on Witchcraft, purchase the print issue from our store, or digitally via our app for iPhone/iPad or Android.

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