Witchcraft return with a brillant new track

Features
By ( Metal Hammer ) published

Listen to Swedish retro-rock heroes' new track The Outcast here!

In the 11 years since their stark, self-titled debut pretty much kickstarted a whole movement of rustic-sounding retro-rock, Sweden’s Witchcraft have proved a restless, yet ever-evolving beast.

Not only have they broadened their musical horizons over the three albums since, enhancing their 70s-wracked doom with elements of prog, folk and psychedelia, their journey has been marked by long absences and near-total lineup changes with enigmatic mainman Magnus Pelander remaining the sole constant.

What has remained, however, is Witchcraft’s potent, and organic sense of atmosphere, an arsenal of killer riffs that drag you in their wake as if they were waves emerging from a vast ocean below, and Magnus’s captivating voice, part SOS, part fiery warning, broadcast on some mono frequency from the far end of the dial.

Now, four years after their last album, Legend, and with another new lineup, Witchcraft are back, with a new album Nucleus due to be released on January 15 via Nuclear Blast Records, and an opening shot across the bows in the form of first single, The Outcast, out December 4, and we have an exclusive preview of that very track, in its full, album-length version.

Borne on a surprisingly funky groove and flecks of flute, The Outcast is a six-minute journey through subtly shifting moods between wistful and riled up, whose talk of ‘sailing away on an endless sea’ gives some inkling of the vistas Witchcraft have opened up.

Extend your spyglass, train it on distant lands and embark on the adventure that is The Outcast below - complete with trippy visuals too!

Pre-order Nucleus here!

Jonathan Selzer
Jonathan Selzer

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.