Saturday night’s alright for slow-motion headbanging. Such was the case at The Garrison, where Witch Mountain was in town with a couple of solid local supporting acts. It’s nice to see a bill where all the bands are complementary, but not identical–three different shades of doom metal were on display last night.
Local doom outfit Smoulder got the evening off to an epic start. With this city skewing more towards stoner/sludge metal, there are very few bands in Toronto that play epic-style doom, so they were a refreshing presence. And hey, any band that covers “Doom Over the World” and brandishes a sword on stage is good in my books!
Volur definitely brought a different esthetic to the evening. Their sophomore effort Ancestors was one of the best, most unique Canadian metal albums that came out last year–a bubbling cauldron of atmospheric folk and blackened doom, with both male and female vocals. And if you’ve never seen an electric violin keeping time with blastbeats, well, that’s pretty much worth the price of admission alone.
This mighta been the heaviest Witch Mountain set I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen ’em every time they played Toronto, plus a couple times in the States. Their new self-titled album does have a few lighter moments, but in the live setting, it hits like a tone of bricks. They did play mostly new material, but busted out “End Game” offa South of Salem for our (or at least my) listening pleasure. Man, I fuckin’ love that record…
