ACID WITCH @ Bovine Sex Club, Toronto ON, November 15, 2014

ACID WITCH @ Bovine Sex Club, Toronto ON, November 15^th, 2014

With support from IDNS and Chainbreaker, who were a great way to get the crowd amped up, Detroit’s Acid Witch made their first ever appearance outside of the United States. Fans packed into Toronto’s Queen Street standby, the Bovine Sex Club, for a Saturday night they’re not likely to forget anytime soon. I know that personally I’ve been waiting to see this band, which I’ve so far found best described as “Halloween Metal” (they did make it onto our Hellbound Halloween Playlist repeatedly) and though I went in apprehensive, I left totally blown away.

Let me explain the apprehension thing. Many of us know the feeling – there’s that album, that spectacular album that you loved, and then heard played live, and were totally let down. Come on, you know it’s happened at least once. So admittedly I had that feeling a little bit, knowing that hearing tracks from 2008’s keyboard-laden treasure Witchtanic Hellucinations could so easily end up being one of those terribly unfortunate instances. Inevitable, right?

Not this time. An evil presence took over the small club. Bursting forth with “Sabbath of the Undead,” the crowd was in a frenzy of energy. Feeding seemingly off of the unstoppable Slasher Dave and his spooky growls, their bubbling beastly brews flowing freely, the headbangers were delighted. It was party time.

The headbanging seemed nonstop even with the onset of a broken string. To be perfectly honest, I barely noticed that happening, and only really took note when I saw this ridiculously fun clip, shot from the crowd: http://youtu.be/Y0EqOokMIAk.

[check out Kevin Nunes on Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/user/MaidenHell1977/videos]

As with the keyboard solo and crowd-pleaser “The Black Witch,” the death metal punch of “Worship the Worm” and irresistible riffage of “Rabid Werewitch” this decidedly undefinable quartet completely nailed what they have so quickly become known for. Treading in a cauldron of drops from all the best elements of creepy psychedelic rock, doomy death metal and crusty thrash.