Smoulder – "Witch Wife In An Alien World" Review

Release date: Out now!

Label: Cruz Del Sur

Canadian/American metallers Smoulder return with their long-awaited third studio album, “Witch Wife in an Alien World,” a bold, daring collection of eight songs that continue to push boundaries and shatter conventions.

For listeners expecting the comfort and familiarity of genre purity, “Witch Wife in an Alien World “will prove a jarring listen. Integrating more prog and black metal influences (just to name a few) than Smoulder’s most recent outing, “Witch Wife” sets out to unsettle the listener from the start. Most pointedly, singer Sarah Ann contorts her melodies and voice into unconventional shapes. Those with the patience to let the album unfurl its hex over repeat spins, however, will be rewarded with an album that gives more on each listen. In making an epic doom album that feels truly alien, Smoulder has achieved an astounding integration of sounds and moods. Smoulder’s rhythm section of Kevin Hester on drums and Adam Blake on bass is absolutely on fire here, providing drum flourishes and bass grooves for days. Shon Vincent’s and Collin Wolf’s guitar riffs and solos situate the album firmly in epic power/doom territory with a grounding in tried and true heavy metal. How “Witch Wife” will be remembered is ultimately a question of the patience of Smoulder’s audience: will they give this album enough of a chance to reveal the unique poetry in its spell? And, if so, will that patience truly pay off?

Review

“Water Wars” starts the album exciting and engaging enough: a flurry of drum rolls introduces a muscular riff. Right out of the gate, the interplay between guitars, bass, and drums is both intricate and gripping. This is Smoulder at their best: exciting and driven and able to walk the line between epic and urgent. What the band was able to achieve on “Violent Creed of Vengeance” is here on full display. However, things take a turn when Ann’s voice enters with a clear message: this is not quite the same Smoulder as “Violent Creed.” Off-kilter melodies fulfil the title promise of giving this track an alien feeling. On first listen, these are jarring melodies, but repeat listens reward: after spinning this album numerous times, I find the quirkiest melodies on this album become more palatable and even enjoyable. Still, I think it was a bold move for Smoulder to put the least conventional of tracks up front. Certainly it reinforces the album’s most central theme, but it makes it a little harder to hit play again once the album concludes.

“Shadow of the Vulture” further advances Smoulder’s questing into unexpected soundscapes. Built around a catchy mid-tempo doom riff, “Shadow of the Vulture” offers memorable hooks and lyrics with the same kind of off-kilter feel present on “Water Wars,” though slightly less alien sounding. Even with these strengths, the track feels like it could culminate into something more exciting and climactic, and, on repeat listens, this song tends to fade into the background.

“Noitien Loitsu” takes more risks than “Shadow of the Vulture” and with bigger payoffs. The lyrics for “Noitien Loitsu” reflect the band’s current home in Finland. Finnish for “Witch’s Spell,” “Noitien Loitsu” is central to the dramatic narrative of Witch Wife and interweaves lines in English with lines in Finnish. A track that showcases the band’s wide-ranging tastes and inspirations, “Noitien Loitsu” puts each member of the band in the spotlight as it casts its spell. From the very beginning of the album, Smoulder sets themselves apart by featuring a tight rhythm section who knows when to emphasise groove and when to add a drum or bass flourish, and this track exemplifies this strength.

On first blush, “Crush the Neophytes” presents the clearest case for Smoulder’s new genre tag as “Blackened Power Doom.” That being said, I particularly like how they have bent black metal to their will: yes, there are blast beats here, but they have a splashiness to them that shapes those blast beats into fantastical rather than fiendish punctuation. What Smoulder most explicitly borrows from black metal here is the grandeur of so-called “castle metal” acts like Obsequiae, Morke, and Weald & Woe. It’s a great fit for their epic doom and power metal sound. However, an undercurrent of creeping evil also points up black metal’s influence. The crescendo and climax of “Crush the Neophytes” is one of the most satisfying moments on Witch Wife. A lurching bassline introduces the motif that builds as layers of guitars and vocals ascend from chanting “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” to “Absurdity / We’ll pick your bones clean.” As dark as it is triumphant, this moment is a definite album highlight.

“Empathy’s Wrath” enters with some burly riffing, wielding power metal like a sword while sounding a battle cry for empathy as an antidote to the increasingly cruel powers that shape this world. The opening of this track is one of my favorite passages on the record, and it comes complete with an “OUGH!” as the introduction builds to the verse. The lyrics aver that empathy is not weakness but strength: “Despots meet their doom / In the half moon’s grip / Rotten tears drip / No escape from / Empathy’s wrath.” Lyrically, Witch Wife is fresh, evocative, and compelling, and this is one of the clearest examples of Ann’s keen writing.

Perhaps Ann’s finest vocal performance on the album, “Their Name Lives On” features Smoulder’s trademark concoction of power metal riffs played at epic doom paces. However, Smoulder demonstrates here their ability to craft a compelling epic in a single digestible song. At five minutes – a relatively moderate run-time for a song in this style – the song builds and builds as Ann’s voice pleads and exhorts the listener to hear her grisly tale. Nevertheless, something about the track’s conclusion always leaves me wanting more.

After majestic twin guitar leads open up “Cathedral of the Trees,” the track veers into classic epic doom territory, and Smoulder strikes that perfect note of mournful grandeur. This song is certain to get heads banging and fists raised. More leads fitted to the “castle metal” mold lift the trudging doom riffs and offer a call-and-response feel that effectively moves between slow and fast without losing any cohesion. Another album highlight, “Cathedral of the Trees” shows guitarists Wolf and Vincent at their very best. These are the guitar licks and riffs that get stuck in my head the most from the album.

Although it may not be surprising to see the album end with an epic closer, “Smouldering Remains” offers plenty of twists and turns to keep things engaging. Ann’s vocals recall “Water Wars” here, not satisfied with outlining melody in a conventional or expected way, but the unexpected vocals here feel much more coherent with the song’s wandering, mysterious path. A snaking, intertwining, and chromatic guitar riff builds with drum and bass to the song’s first triumph: a big, mean doom riff. After an odd-ball guitar solo, the band (replete with the voices of the “Smoulder Choir”) breaks into a chant of “Smouldering remains!” A final guitar solo introduces the final chant and the song draws to a close. A very satisfying ending.

Conclusion

As one Bandcamp reviewer succinctly put it, Witch Wife is a grower. Given the space and time to blossom in the listener’s ear, it is a fine addition to Smoulder’s catalogue, though not without its missteps. What first seems awkward (especially the opening and closing tracks) turns out to be the entire point: this album takes epic power and doom metal to alien lands through unconventional detours through blackened fantasy and goth romanticism. The middle section of the album is particularly compelling and, on repeat listens, feels fresh every time; the one-two punch of “Crush the Neophytes” and “Empathy’s Wrath” is well worth the price of admission. One of the album’s greatest feats is its integration of prog and black metal elements into Smoulder’s core sound. Despite a few awkward moments and some tracks that never quite build to their fullest potential, the experimentation here largely pays off. Give this one a few spins to get the full experience.