ACID WITCH – rot among us – GATEFOLD STRIPE LP

Doom metal – Mustard/Orange/White striped – Hells Headbangers

*1,000 “Candy Corn” (mustard/orange/white striped)

Then again, since the release of 2017’s Evil Sound Screamers, ACID WITCH have certainly stayed busy on the short-length front, not to mention founding frontman/keyboardist Slasher Dave’s soundtrack-oriented solo work. That latter element comes ever more to the fore on the band’s fourth full-length, Rot Among Us. That preceding album surely emphasized those synths, as well, bringing the band’s beloved horror canon of the ’70s and ’80s into sharper focus, but ACID WITCH top even that with Rot Among Us. Much, much darker and deadly serious but somehow clearer and more drug-crazed, Rot Among Us shows ACID WITCH in rarefied form, retaining their core sound but lacing each of these 10 anthems with a lysergic sense of starpower that’s simply larger than life. A devilish sense of fun prevails, as it always has in the ACID WITCH world, but they take these arena-ready anthems in a gutsfucking and grimy direction that’s absolutely DARK at the very, bitter end – and all of it’s threaded together with acutely filmic samples, making that path to that end like a movie itself.