Exclusive Stream: The Wytches ‘Darker’

The Wytches’ Annabel Dream Reader is one of the best albums we’ve ever heard. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s fucking fantastic and it’s one of those albums that just keeps getting better. You listen to it until you can’t listen to it anymore and then you wait half an hour and it sounds amazing again.

Their ‘surf-doom’ is a heady mix of psychedelia and stoner metal that’s littered with groans and screeches that’s seen them draw comparisons to everyone from The Coral to Kyuss. It’s an exciting change to hear a band so committed to making genuinely scary, earth shaking music and we’re totally hooked.

Can you imagine how excited we got when we heard they had a track that they forgot to record for the album and they wanted us to be the first people to hear it? Suffice to say we were doing broomstick impressions and mixing up a giant batch of tea in a cauldron in preparation. Well, maybe not, but we did get Dan (their affable bassist) to answer a few questions for us to mark the special occasion. Read his answers and listen to Darker below.

Darker‘s a cool jam. Why didn’t it make the album?

We had a fair amount of songs we wanted to put down for the album. We ended up doing 16 and 13 went on the album. We’d planned to record Darker too but just forgot.

Where did you record it?

It was recorded back at Toerag again where we did the album.

What’s the track all about then?

Can’t really speak for Kristian on this one. I feel it’s one of his more personal songs.

Darkness is a recurring theme with you though. Why are you guys so dark and menacing all the time? 

It’s just a fairly dark album lyrically and I guess paired with our music it creates that darkness. Some of the new tracks aren’t that dark though. It’s just the current incarnation of the band. We aren’t giving up on darkness completely though.

Good to hear! Which witch is your favourite witch and why?

Sabrina. Obviously. Failing that, Nancy from the Craft as she’s the most committed.

I keep hearing people call you a surf-doom band. With that in mind, I wondered, have you ever been to Newquay?