Fiddle Witch And The Demons Of Doom Release S/T Album

Photo: Anthony Rathbun

There are plenty of times where I relish the storied past of Houston’s music scene, especially as to how it relates to the music we produce as a city today.  There have always been massive amounts of talented artists who are making music for the masses.  However, every so often I come across an album where it reminds me of Houston’s past, where very talented people come together to make an album where I wonder who it’s for.  I wasn’t aware of the band or any of the members of Houston’s Fiddle Witch And The Demons Of Doom when I was handed the album they’ll be releasing this Friday.  The six song release that clocks in at forty five minutes, made me wish I hadn’t lost that time from my life.  Though the band is made up of three very talented artists, and it was produced by SugarHill guru Steve Christensen; I found the songs to take too long to get going, and often without purpose.  The songs, while mostly well crafted were just too long and felt like they were written more like jams without proper song structures.  Where most bands make songs that make you know where things are meant to go, this album is full of songs that almost have no purpose.

I should start by prefacing this with the fact that I’m not a Trans-Siberian Orchestra guy, which is what this album reminds me of.  All six songs are instrumentals, and they seem to tell a story that any fan of “Game of Thrones” would enjoy.  The opening track, “Viking Bash” opens with what sounds like swords clamoring to have the drums roll in with a thunderous pace.  They’re met with electric viola, to create this feverish stride where the third instrument, a distorted bass roars beneath the track.  The song’s opening has an epic feel that soon is ruined when the track goes into a slowdown.  That slow period, while well played really kills the vibe of the song, that almost goes into a “Harvester of Sorrow” slow jam kind of sound.  This goes on, for what seems like way too long before the song slowly picks the pace back up.  The sound of crashing waves and a boat who has a weary mast crackling permeates the background.  By the time the song picks back up, I had already given up and found myself forgetting that I was listening to an album.  This is followed by the nine minute and fifty nine second track, “Broken Brain.”  The song is appropriately titled, as my brain was broken while I waited for almost a minute for the track to attempt to go somewhere.  Once the kick drum from Spike the Percussionist kicks in, he gets met with more of the electric viola, and a nice and murky bassline.  At a minute and a half in, things pick up and the three instruments get an almost speed metal rhythm going.  Then again, the band decides to go back into this slow pace, then fast again; and then if you’re like me, you’ve lost interest.  The song lugs on like this for what feels like a never ending time frame.  You immediately feel like someone should have told the band that any song, whether it has vocals or not; should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  This song goes on too long to hold your attention enough to ever figure out if any of those three factors were considered when the band wrote the track.

This occurs again on the third song, “Venemous Laxative,” which also clocks in at almost ten minutes.  The fourth song, “Rebecca The Witch” was the only song on the album that held my attention.  Things open with a back track of nighttime and laughter, to be followed by a very haunting and mysterious viola solo.  It gets met with what sounds like a secondary viola track, and the two together seem to tell the story of sadness and despair.  Jo Bird’s viola is simply masterful on the song, and it makes you long for more tracks this short, and this meaningful on the album.  However, what you get is a jammier song with “Bone Chomper,” where the band gets a little heavier and incorporates a darker metal vibe.  The bass work from Geoffrey Muller on the song is impeccable, but not enough to hide the fact that again; the song drags on without much purpose.  The album gets closed out with the somber and almost Southern feeling of “Down To Hell.”  The three piece almost emulates a hint of Charlie Daniels Band, where things have those traces of country twang that most Texans have grown up with.  Muller’s use of the banjo really adds spice to things, making this the other song on the album that stands out from the rest.

I would guess that there are plenty of people who would love this album, but I’m not one of them.  There were too many times where the band felt more like they were playing for themselves, and never for any audience that exists today.  I will say that from the videos I watched online, the band seems to have a stronger presence in a live setting when performing the same songs. It’s a shame that these songs don’t take you away to a magical place where your imagination can take hold.  The members all have the talents to create a world where the listener can lose themselves in.  But on this album, things are too disjointed to take you anywhere.  If this kind of music is your thing, then you can catch Fiddle Witch And The Demons Of Doom when they host their album release party this Friday at Rudyard’s.  The 21 & up show has doors at 9:00 and a $10.00 cover.

by David Garrick