Poptones.co.uk's Download of the Week - Witch!

J Masic and freak-psych-folk band Feathers join together to recreate some of the finest stoner rock known to man!  To read and download their debut single click below.

J Mascis is a weird one really.  Having been off the mainstream
media’s map since the early 90s, he only seemed to pop up on production
jobs for small indie bands or singing backing vocals for prog-rock
freaks Mew when not playing solo shows for his dedicated fanbase who
are all seemingly intent on reliving their student years with those
baggy Dinosaur Jr t-shirts from the 80s now fitting rather snugly. 
Having been a fan of J Mascis myself for years even I had written him
off as an anachronism after his 2003 solo effort which left no
impression on me except a ‘yeah...its J Mascis’ and having met the man
who responded to my conversation with one word answers and light
head-nodding, my fandom seemed slighted and as bored as J Mascis
himself during that conversation (though to be fair how many times has
he been asked about playing the Jenny Jones talk show .. I’d be bored).

So, when internet talk started to pick up on having having started
another band called ‘Witch’, I was expecting Dinosaur Jr Mark 2, The
Monsters of Rock Reunion Tour.  So, imagine Poptones.co.uk surprise
when the news that Witch, the new band J Mascis has started actually
doesn’t have him singing but doing what he does the best ... play the
drums!  Yes.  Ironic.  But not when you consider that J had started
music by playing drums in his hardcore band ‘Deep Wound’.

But Witch leaves all that behind.  But what J Mascis and friends have
developed Instead, is one of the hardest rockers committed to vinyl
that Poptones.co.uk has heard all year.  While, considering that we are
only one month into the year but still its a good start.

With avant-garde wyrd folkster Feathers vocalist Kylie Thomas and
guitarist Asa Irons on board, the band develop into a fog of
Vietnam-inducing pot smoke with some of hte heaviest guitar lines not
heard of since Black Sabbath hit the scene.  This is stoner rock for
the stoned.  And on their debut album they have opened up the portal of
Stooges punk rock meeting the power-trio-from-hell like Groundhogs and
Blue Cheer, yet, without evoking patroli-induced memories of the past
because they will have killed of the hippies in their punk rock
machine.  This is fuckinig powerful and frightening music; from the
opening of Seer with its crunched up and rather fucking nasty acid
friend of the night psychedelia to the descent into a fuzzy hell called
‘Isodora’...

What does Poptones.co.uk think of Witch?  Basically fucking come on
bring on 2006 if it is going to be all this good…

To stream the first single from Witch please click here.

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