28 Apr 2017

Swamp Witch: "Gnosis"


The soundtrack to your worst nightmare
Every so often a band will emerge with little to no warning and simply floor you with its sonic output. One such band is Swamp Witch, with their 2011 EP Gnosis, which forcibly injects tainted acid into the veins of the listener and sends them on a journey of murkey, distorted psychedelia.

Across their three tracks, the occult ramblings of the Californian outfit extend their writhing tendrils over basic structures of immense heaviness and cosmic importance, with sludgey free-form guitars jamming across the main riffs while the bass, seemingly living its own life, roams in the background, all tied together by a drummer with a hyperactive right hand who yet likes to keep it simple.

"...their outing shows a deranged aesthetic and primal drive,"

Throughout Gnosis, Swamp Witch never commit to being fully resurrectionist nor avant-gardist. Falling somewhere in between, their outing shows a deranged aesthetic and primal drive which can't quite be pinpointed as sounding specifically like any one influence.


Swamp Witch play with a large degree of authenticity, never once calling their background or motivation into question. Gnosis simply portrays a reverence for their inspiration, coupled with a very clear idea of where they want to take their music in a format so compelling that it's impossible to not get dragged down into their sludgy bog with them.

9/10


Released in 2011 by Gay Scientist Recordings

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