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Doom-metal band Windhand
(Dorthia Cottrell on vocals, Garrett Morris and Asechiah Bogdan of
Alabama Thunderpussy
on guitars), from
Virginia, proved to be diligent disciples of
Electric Wizard
on
Windhand (2012) and especially Soma (2013), produced by
James Plotkin,
containing the
labyrinthine 30-minute Boleskine, thanks to enchanting vocals and stately riffs.
Grief's Infernal Flower (2015), produced by Jack Endino, a more mainstream effort.
Bogdan left in 2015 and
esoteric priestess Dorthia Cottrell launched her solo career with the
acoustic albums Dorthia Cottrell (2015)
Windhand, pared down to a quartet, reunited for Eternal Return (2018), again produced by Endino.
Dorthia Cottrell's second solo album Death Folk Country (2023) is a
collection of morbid dirges that would be indeed "folk" and "country" if it weren't for the spooky arrangements: echoes, metallic noises, rumbling drones, catatonic riffs, crashing hi-hats, and, towering over everything else, the singer's languid litanies.
However the funereal chant Family Annihilator weds its macabre atmosphere to a psychedelic atmosphere reminiscent of spaced-out vocal harmonies of the 1960s.
She calmly jumps from genre to genre:
gospel (the organ-driven prayer Take Up Serpents, with a ticking guitar melody that evokes House of the Rising Sun),
country (the sorrowful drum-less ballad Effigy at the Gates of Ur),
blues-rock (Midnight Boy, with crunchy and fuzzy guitar riffs),
and
pre-rock blues (Hell in My Water).
Her doom background is most evident in the
stately ode to death Harvester.
(Copyright © 2023 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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