#witch piss

[ourladyofomega]

[ourladyofomega]

[doomedandstoned]

Belgium’s WITCH PISS Serve Up Grinding New Stoner Metal Epic

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Artwork by Jo Riou

"One thing we can be sure of is that we'll all die. Everyone will. It makes sense not to be afraid of this, but to come to terms with it."

With this bit of narration, WITCH PISS belt out "Old Hound Religion," a swampy southern-tinged rock stomper from their eponymous extended play debut.

Witch Piss is a five-piece stoner metal crew hailing from Mechelen, Belgium, with members of Marche Funèbre and Drawn Into Descent.

"How to Travel Lighter" is the gnarly little number that follows, which Doomed & Stoned is debuting today. Vocals are husky, with a gravely edge, and hold their own well amidst instruments that hold nothing back in terms of chugging, downtuned devastation. The song's incessant groove reminds me of a band from my neck of the woods, Tigers on Opium, and I would be happy to see the two bands collab one day.

Singer Peter Egberghs shares some background:

"How to Travel Lighter" is one of those songs that doesn’t muck about. We wrote a first version and then rewrote the whole structure, cutting some of the repetitions. Less is more in this case. We sent it over to Chiaran Verheyden, who engineered the studio session, and he suggested adding a slow crushing ending riff to top the whole song off. Slow riffs? Sure, we can do that! So that’s how the music came about, in a nutshell.

Lyric wise, it’s a bit of a personal song for me. It might not be that obvious because they are cryptic, but it’s actually about my mother who passed away. She was dying when we were touring with Marche Funèbre in Europe. I got a call with some bad news and drove back from Denmark to Belgium only to find her in a coma.

That sounds heavy and depressing, but it’s actually a positive song because it shines light on how you can lighten that burden for yourself. I dealt with this in my own way, which involved therapy, but through that whole process my mental luggage started to weigh less and less, so that’s how to travel lighter. Throughout the lyrics you’ll find references to her. But I like to keep some of that open to interpretation.

The tracks that follow give us an idea of the band's full range of expression, including the desert rumblings of "Me and My Camaro" and "Hoofprints," which takes a turn for the dismal with its doomy touches.

In "The Hunter And The Game," Peter Egberghs's pipes rival Clutch's Neil Fallon and Orange Goblin's Ben Ward. Dennis Lefebvre's drumming is deep and full, as is the basswork by Glenn Van Bael. Dual guitar force from Andoni Lombide Carreton and Stijn Georges Moens lends each song frenetic energy and gravitas.

"Children of the Fire" slows things back down for the closer. It's a slow burner with splashing, emphatic beats, dark, mysterious atmosphere, and an imposing guitar presence. Don't miss the final minutes, with its rousing chorus: "Your time is nigh" -- taking us full-circle to the sentiment with which the EP began.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this band progresses as the year plods along. In the meanwhile, you can expect 'Witch Piss' (2023) to embrace the light of day on April 7th via Saturni Records. And if you're in Belgium, don't miss the release party, taking place May 6th with Gnome and Opium Heathen at De Club in Mechelen (pre-sale here).

Give ear...

WATCH & LISTEN: Witch Piss - "How To Travel Lighter"

SOME BUZZ

Witch Piss is a band that started at the bar. A group of friends were drinking beers and were listening to some groovy stoner music. They decided to pick up their instruments and start playing some tunes. Peter, Stijn and Andoni were in the first try out line up. Back then that meant three guitarists. Peter was combining guitar and vocals but they decided three was overkill and Peter wanted to concentrate on the vocals. The band was soon joined by Glenn on bass and Dennis on Drums.

Musically they wanted to sound somewhere in between Black Sabbath and High On Fire. They haven’t strayed from that path. After the lockdowns the band premiered live in the same bar where the band was conceived.

In the live shows that followed they shared the stage with Vandal X, Your Highness, RRRags, Whorses etc. This all happened without having released one second of music. That is about to change. Witch Piss hit the studio in December 2022 and recorded everything live. The whole process was in the hands of Chiaran Verheyden, known for his excellent work as engineer and producer of Psychonaut and Hippotraktor.

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[muumuuhouse]

[forgottengenres]

Review: 'Witch Piss' by Sam Pink | Brian Alan Ellis

Rontel, Sam Pink’s brilliant previous novel, was narrated by a nameless guy who wanders Chicago meeting random eccentrics no match for the maddening absurdities percolating in his time-bomb mind. In Witch Piss, however, these musings tick faintly as the eccentrics run the asylum.

This time, Pink’s narrator befriends a group of homeless people who sleep in alleys, wear colorful wigs, and drink fruit-flavored malt liquor. He is immediately smitten:

  "He raised his eyebrows up and down, smiling.

He mimed shooting a basketball, jumping backwards, wig waving.

His clothes—if washed—were nicer than mine.

Plus he had a good attitude and his jumpshot looked better.

Overall, I liked him more than me."

  Spider-Man is the guy Pink’s narrator envies most, at least at first. Spider-Man looks after (and, according to others, sometimes abuses) his girlfriend Janet, a paraplegic who rarely wears pants and spends most of her days playing games on a cell phone. Their pals include reformed gangbangers, crack addicts, shit-talking military vets, people named Face, people named Speedy:

  "Speedy said some shit that no one understood, wiping off his bottom lip slowly with his knuckle.

It looked like he was waiting for our response, but no one said anything.

Then, louder, he said, “Bussy. I’nt some bussy!”

He had his mouth open a little, tongue along his bottom lip.

And that little wormy vein on his temple.

“I’na fuck a bish,” he said.

Face laughed like ‘Hik’ik’ik’ and slapped Mike’s arm.

Mike was taking a drag of his cigarette—fingers still around it—shaking his head no with his eyes closed.

“I’na fuck a bish,” Speedy said. “Some bussy.”"

  They all mess with each other:

  "Troy laughed a little, half-asleep again.

He stretched out his arms and put them behind his head.

He accidentally hit the piss jug with his elbow and the jug wobbled, but he grabbed it and settled it.

Face said, “Ey, Troy, gimme that beer.”

Troy grabbed the piss jug and said, “This beer?”

Face laughed.

Troy laughed, waving his hand down like ‘nah just kidding.’

Then he grabbed the 40 by his bed and handed it to Face.

Face said, “What if I just take this shit from you right now, on some gangsta shit.”

Troy said, “Go ahead, issa bissa, yo, look, I mean, fine. I don’t give a fuck about the beer. Just don’t take the piss ok?”

Face laughed, slapping the dumpster lid a little, holding the 40 up high."

  And they tell a lot of crazy stories:

  "“A guard took his ass to ‘clean a bathroom,’” Spider-Man said, doing the quotes. “Then the guard left, and four dudes came in and smashed him. Cold smashed his ass. They don’t give a fuck. They all lifers anyway. What’s  45 more years? Who give a fuck? Fuckin fists, kicks, broomsticks, stompin his ass. Bashed his head against the toilet. Dahhh.”

He mimed slamming his own head into a toilet, hand on the back of his neck.

“Goosh goosh goosh, ahhhhh,” he yelled, making a cartoonish face.

He was sucking in the spit that came out over his lips, in between laughing and saying, “Goosh goosh.”"

  You’ll also find out, in graphic detail, how body parts end up in garbage bags stolen from convenience stores, why women set men on fire, and what bikers stuff into the slashed throats of pedophiles.

Witch Piss is a different kind of Sam Pink novel. It isn’t just about an outsider looking inward, trying to get away. Here, the outsiders find and keep each other (or at least they attempt to). In fact, the stream-of-conscious narration (to me, the genius of Pink’s work) takes a pretty far backseat to the everyday banality of Spider-Man and company, though there is a grumbling of it here and there:

  "A pit bull rushed up to the gate of a chainlink fence, barking at us.

It made sideways contact with me, going, ‘Oorv, oorv.’

Part of me wanted to grab it by the head and kiss it right on the lips then let it eat my face off.

The other part of me wanted the exact same thing."

  If Witch Piss isn’t the great follow-up to Rontel that Pink’s fans were hoping for, then it is certainly a fascinating detour. It’s its own living, breathing entity. It’s like HBO’s High on Crack Street meets a really bizarre episode of Friends, where the cast drink 40s in front of dumpsters behind 7-11 instead of sipping Frappuccino at coffee shop open-mic nights; where Jennifer Aniston shits herself and Matt LeBlanc is missing teeth.  And despite these characters’ failings, despite his own, Pink’s narrator finds them and safely keeps them.

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Brian Alan Ellis is the author of The Mustache He's Always Wanted but Could Never Grow and 33 Fragments of Sick-Sad Living. His writing has appeared in such publications as Skive, The Single Hound, Zygote in My Coffee, Monkeybicycle, DOGZPLOT, Conte, FLARE: The Flagler Review, Sundog Lit, Diverse Voices Quarterly, flashquake, Spittoon, The Next Best Book Blog, Spry, Emerge, Thieves Jargon, NAP, and Atticus Review, among others, and was also adapted and performed by the “Stories on Stage” theatre program in Denver, Colorado. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, and has only been to Chicago once.

[abouttblank]

We each grabbed one of Speedy's arms and put it around our shoulders, taking a leg underneath the thigh. I got some spit on my neck from Speedy's coat and his jeans were all pissed and steamy. Oh Speedy.

Sam Pink