Richmond, Virgina’s Windhand released their self-titled full-length debut in 2012 and have become doom metal heavyweights since then.
You might think it’s an EP at first, since it only have five tracks, but the last two are each over ten minutes long. There are more heavy riffs and growling menace on this record than there are in a den of angry bears.
Starting with “Black Candles,” the double-whammy of guitarists Asechiah Bodgan and lead guitarist and producer Garrett Morris hits you out of the cemetery gate and Dorthia Cottrell‘s spooky vocals must have caused chills in 2012 because they still do now.
“Libusen” starts with the sound of a thunderstorm, and it’s peaceful at first, and then Nathan Hilbish‘s bass and Ryan Wolfe‘s drums hit like sledgehammers. Cottrell sounds like she’s singing from, or possibly toward, a portal to another dimension that Morris’ guitar solo has apparently opened.
“Heap Wolves,” the shortest song on the album at a little under five minutes, wastes no time in hitting hard and heavy for its run time. Cottrell’s vocals are often hard to decipher, but that’s often the point. They become another instrument, a chant, a spell, a hypnosis.
“Summon the Moon” starts off slow and menacing, like something awakening under a swamp. Hilbish’s bass is the low rumble of a yawning beast until it turns into a hungry roar. Cottrell’s hypnotic voice becomes one of ancient, seething rage while Wolfe uses big hits with simple cymbal hits to create a slightly unsettling effect.
You can help but crank “Winter Sun.” It’s perfect for putting on a suit of magic armor, casting a spell to commune with spirits, and digging an ancient book out of a collapsed tomb inhabited by a wraith. The fuzzy snarl throughout makes you feel ready for battle rather than dreading the dark forces plotting your demise.
It’s a powerful debut and Windhand has since taken the metal world by storm. I’ve been to multiple shows where they’re not playing and people are talking about them. This is a great place to start if you’re still new to them.
Dorthia Cottrell envisions her music as both a document of love and a reconciliation with death. On her new album, Death Folk Country, Cottrell wards off death through creation – the most distilled form of love. The spirit of love passed on through her words will be the ultimate reward for earthly suffering. Cottrell’s enigmatic presence guides listeners down a path of introspection – Death Folk Country‘s massive scope touches upon tales of love, loss, and so much more.
Cottrell was raised in rural King George, Virginia, a town with less than 5,000 inhabitants. Forests and tall-grass fields stretched before her. Beauty and boredom soared. That vague melancholy and memory of the American South is smudged all over Cottrell’s music. Cottrell grew up a goth, an outcast in a small town – a time and place she revisits throughout Death Folk Country.
“This album to me is about painting a picture of a place where my heart lives,” Cottrell explains. The title Death Folk Country is partly me describing a genre that fits the sound – but it’s also meant to be taken as a Naming, a coronation of the world inside me. Death Folk Country is the music and also the land where the music takes place, and the two have always been inextricable from each other.”
The album’s lead single “Family Annihilator” directly speaks to the unease and tension of Cottrell’s surroundings. “Porch lights keep the demons at bay,” she sings over crashing cymbals and a field recording of birds. “I had never played it before, I kind of brought it out of the attic,” Cottrell says of the song. Despite being over a decade old, “Family Annihilator” spoke to the moment she was in. With the threat of another four years of conservative offices in power, Cottrell thought of family back in the South who would be voting, and remembered something her grandfather, a farmer, had told her years ago: “If a crop is diseased, you have to burn the whole crop.” “‘Family Annihilator’ is a result of me wondering if the whole field must burn today, to save the flowers of tomorrow,” Cottrell says.
Elsewhere, the sounds of Cottrell’s childhood can be heard all over the album, and no more so than on “Harvester” and “Black Canyon” – tracks decorated with chimes and monk’s bells; what Cottrell would have heard when sat out on her front porch in King George. These are sounds of nature longing. These are sounds Cottrell associates with both her upbringing and also the world of Death Folk Country.
Cottrell’s voice, a quavering alto, fills the emptiest of canyons. Singing in echoing harmony with itself, her voice is a kind of prophecy, bringing home to the present thoughts and realizations from the future, even as Cottrell buries herself in remembrance of the past.
“I grew up deep in a Virginia Pine forest in a house built entirely by my grandpa,” Cottrell recalls. “The only type of door I knew was made of plywood and had a hook instead of a knob. We were excited to have our washing machine and dryer on the porch so we didn’t have to hang clothes up to dry in the winter. Our heat came from burning wood. If you didn’t cut the wood you didn’t get warm. If you didn’t make a specific effort for something, you went without it. And I loved it. I still love it. The smell, the air, the way it looks, the way it sounds. The way it doesn’t sound. The feeling.”
Death Folk Country takes these nostalgic ideas of “home” and confronts them with their own imperfections and darkness.
“There are things I don’t love about it too. Dark things. Misguided ideas. Fear of things not understood. An altogether monstrous and violent evil that seeps unsuspecting and aloof (seemingly) into even the most (seemingly) innocent conversation. As I grow older, the things I love and hate about it only become more and more vivid and I often think about how to keep the two worlds apart–how to separate the divine from the evil and if it’s even possible.”
Death Folk Country sees its release April 21 via Relapse Records, her first for the label and follow up to her highly acclaimed, 2015 S/T solo debut. All songs on Death Folk Country were written / played by Dorthia Cottrell and recorded / produced by Jon K. and Cottrell at SANS Studios in Richmond, Virginia.
We’re more than halfway through this list now, and we have a welcome comeback album, a live album, an improvised album, a double album, and an EP. What are they? Read on to find out.
#15: Yardsss – Cultus (2020)
You could almost call this an EP, since it’s only three tracks, but two of those tracks are each over twenty minutes long. Cultusis the improvised album I mentioned. It’s a stunning soundscape of shoegaze, psychedelia, synthwave, and jazz that the band created out of thin air with no plan at all. It’s a testament to their talent and an amazing listen.
#14: LCD Soundsystem – American Dream (2017)
Here we have the welcome comeback. LCD Soundsystem returned after a hiatus to bring all of us the dance punk we desperately needed as the country was beginning to tear at each other’s throats in fear and ignorance. Tracks like “Emotional Haircut” skewered hipsters and “Call the Police” addressed xenophobia – all the while making us dance.
#13: Windhand – Levitation Sessions (2020)
My wife and I watched a few live-streamed concerts in 2020, and all of them were good. This one, however, was the only one to give me chills. Windhand always brings power and spooky vibes to their brand of doom metal, and the Reverb Appreciation Society’s sound gurus did a great job of capturing Windhand’s wizardry in this live session. The hairs on my arm stood during “Forest Clouds.” I wanted to run through the streets yelling, “Wear a damn mask and wash your hands!” to everyone in sight to increase the likelihood we could all see Windhand live again soon.
#12: Thee Oh Sees – Facestabber (2019)
It was a bit difficult to choose which Oh Sees record to include in my top 40 list, because they put out a lot of material during the last five years – especially in 2020 when John Dwyer and his crew had nothing else to do but make more music and released multiple albums, EPs, and singles. The double-album of Face Stabber, however, was the album that I kept coming back to and giving to friends as a 2019 Christmas gift. It blends psychedelia with Zappa-like jazzy jams (with the stunning twenty-plus-minute “Henchlock” taking up one side of the double album) and took their music to a different level, which was pretty high already.
#11: WALL – (self-titled EP) (2016)
Holy cow. This post-punk EP from Brooklyn’s WALL burst onto the scene like Kool-Aid Man hitting a brick wall keeping him separated from kids dying of dehydration. “Cuban Cigars” was played all over England’s BBC 6 Music (where I first heard it) and they were the talk of SXSW and the east coast’s post-punk scene. They put together an untitled full album after this, but broke up before it was released. Fortunately, the lead singer and the guitarist went on to form Public Practice. This EP, however, relit my passion for post-punk into a three-alarm fire.
The top 10 begins tomorrow. It includes more post-punk, a rap album, Canadian psychedelia, and an Australian album that never ends.
This album is “only” three tracks, but one of them is over twenty-three minutes long. The other two are over seven minutes each. Even more impressive? This entire psychedelic / prog-rock album was improvised. Yardsss came in without a game plan and created a monster of a record that you can’t believe was done on the fly.
#4: Caroline Rose – Superstar
This is Caroline Rose’s best album to date. She tackles subjects like fame, flying your freak flag, sex, love, lust, and finding the self with power pop riffs, playful, lovely vocals, and some of her wittiest songwriting to date.
#3: Windhand – Levitation Sessions
I watched several livestream concerts this year, and all were good. This one by doom metal giants Windhand, however, literally gave me chills. That moment came during “Forest Clouds” when I could feel something happening. The hairs on my arms stood up and I couldn’t stop grinning. It was a powerful moment that I needed to remind me that live music will return. Nothing can stop it (or Windhand, it seems), and this entire live album was like being handed a battle axe as a hobgoblin army advances on the city.
#2: Automatic – Signal
I knew right away upon hearing Signalthat (A) it was a post-punk gauntlet thrown down at other bands, (B) it was sexy as an underground 1960s dance club in Paris, and (C) it was going to be my favorite debut album of 2020. Everything on this album works at a high level. It makes you feel like a sexy bad ass, and all three ladies in Automatic are such. Tread lightly, however. They’re not screwing around and might whack you with a claw hammer if you cross the line.
#1: Flat Worms – Antarctica
This psych / garage / punk masterpiece by Flat Worms went into my #1 spot upon first hearing it in April 2020 and never moved. It is stunningly powerful and chock-full of killer lyrics about fighting against the rat race, internet addiction, the depersonalization of others, economic inequality, and toxic relationships. This is one of those albums that sounds new every time I hear it. It’s a shame they couldn’t tour to promote it, because this album could’ve and should’ve made them big-time draws.
I’m already hearing good stuff in 2021, so let’s stay healthy and get back to shows and festivals.
It’s difficult to capture the power of Windhand live, but the Reverb Appreciation Society‘s druids did a good job of it with the Virginian doom metal band’s Levitation Sessions.
Garrett Morris‘ opening guitar riffs on “Old Evil” are like the sound of a dragon awakening from a slumber in a dormant volcano. Dorthia Cottrell‘s vocals are the voice of the sorceress awakening said dragon, Ryan Wolfe‘s drums are the sides of the volcano breaking away as the dragon stretches its wings, and Parker Chandler‘s bass is the growling of the beast’s hungry, fiery belly. This heavy and hypnotizing sound is one that Windhand does well, and it’s a chilling experience.
“Diablerie,” a song about the machinations of evil beings, sounds like a swarm of black cloaked hornets. Cottrell’s vocals fade between the front and back of the song, not unlike a mist you see and feel around you but cannot grasp. Morris’ solo is like a falling star you manage to glimpse through a break in the mist before it hits the Earth and creates a shockwave for miles.
There’s a little time to breathe before “First to Die,” and I love the way Cottrell chose to sing the vocals on this version. She takes to a quieter (but not by much, mind you) approach and lets Chandler’s bass and Wolfe’s drums carry the red dwarf star matter-heavy weight of the track. The live version of “Forest Clouds” on this recording gives me chills every time I hear it. Every. Time. It’s like walking in a dark wetlands at the bottom of a cemetery hill filled with cloaked figures who may or may not be ghosts. It creeps along for nearly eleven minutes and can be unsettling to the uninitiated.
“Three Sisters” (with horror movie keyboard riffs from Jonathan Kassalow) layers the reverb on Cottrell’s vocals and Morris’ guitar to make them sound like siren and whale songs bouncing off sharp rocks. Chandler and Wolfe keep the rhythm simple and brooding throughout it, not unlike the Telltale Heart. The opening guitar squall of “Grey Garden” is practically the sound of a wrought iron gate being wrenched open on a tomb, which is appropriate for a song about death and reincarnation.
“I miss the feeling of the landslide, shaking the dust off my skin,” Cottrell sings on “Orchard” – a dark song about even darker things that lie waiting for us beyond the veil (if we choose to give them power, that is). The album ends with another eleven-minute stunner – “Cossack.” There’s enough sludge in it to make you feel like you’re wading through a swamp to battle a shambling mound with an obsidian sword you found in an abandoned dwarfish mine. It slows to the pace of a kaiju monster stomping across the countryside around the eight-minute mark.
It’s another excellent Levitation Session and a fine addition to Windhand‘s catalogue. Not even 2020 can keep their power at bay.
Keep your mind open.
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Here’s the list you’ve all been waiting for. As always, there are so many good albums out every year that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. Here are my top thirty.
#30: The Dunes (self-titled) – A great return for the Dunes, this album of Australian psychedelic rock is full of reverb, fuzz, and even surf touches.
#29: Underworld and Iggy Pop – Teatime Dub Encounters – This EP was made during lunch meetings at a hotel and blends great stories from Pop with Underworld’s masterful beats.
#28: Avis: Sova – Shampoo You – This Chicago’s three-piece’s newest garage rock-psych record gets better with each listen.
#27: Windhand – Eternal Return – This doom metal album became one of my favorites of the year as soon as I heard it. I immediately began recommending them to anyone and even bought it as a birthday gift for a pal.
#26: Makeness – Loud Patterns – This electro album wasn’t on my radar until Makeness’ label sent it to me for review. It turned out to be a solid record with interesting structures to it.
We’re into the top 25 tomorrow. Come back for more!
Keep your mind open.
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I saw a lot of bands in 2018. Making a list of the top 30 acts was a challenge, but here goes.
#30: Golden Dawn Arkestra at Levitation Austin – They played a wild, incense-heavy set to a fun home crowd at Cheer Up Charlie’s. They never disappoint.
#29: The Soft Moon at Levitation France – It had been a while since I’d seen the Soft Moon in concert, and seeing them at Levitation Austin was a treat. The crowd was psyched for them, and the Soft Moon fed on that energy.
#28: Simple Minds at Detroit’s Fillmore Theatre – This show was better than I hoped it would be. They played two solid sets and covered a lot of good choices from their forty-year catalogue.
#27: Garbage at Paris’ Bataclan – The Bataclan was a lot smaller than I had envisioned, so that made this set by Garage more intimate, louder, and a great time.
#26: Windhand at Chicago’s Subterranean – I’d seen Windhand earlier in the year at Levitation Austin, but not their full set. This full set in a small Chicago dive bar was so heavy that it threatened to open a black hole in the room.
A place called “Subterranean” seems like a perfect fit to see doom metal rockers Windhand. A lot of their songs cover subjects like graveyards, tombs, and ancient things best left buried. They played to a happy crowd of metal heads, goths, and music geeks like yours truly in the small club. Unfortunately for me, their opening band, Satan’s Satyrs, were wrapping up their set about the time I was walking up to the door. Yes, I could hear them from outside and even across a busy Chicago street.
Windhand were just as loud, if not louder. I hadn’t seen them since I caught most of their set at Levitation Austinearlier this year, and that was an open-air stage. This would be my first time seeing them in an enclosed space. I’m glad I brought my earplugs.
Emerging to a recording of spooky Halloween / haunted house noises, they opened with, what else, “Old Evil” and immediately unleashed thunder.
Lead singer Dorthia Cottrell was fully warmed up by the time they reached “First to Die,” and following it with “Forest Clouds” and “Grey Garden” had the entire crowd head-banging in unison.
One thing I noticed live that I now can’t believe I missed when listening to their new record, Eternal Return, was how Garrett Morris‘ guitar work often brings in distortion and effects with shoegaze influences. It’s no secret that I love shoegaze music, so this is probably one of the many reasons I like Windhand so much.
Everyone in the crowd was ready for the Grim Reaper to show up by the time Windhand got to “Red Cloud” and “Cossack.” It was a heavy, powerful performance that I needed after a work week that had me dealing with a staggering amount of paperwork until my eyes were sore.
Another breath of fresh air at this show was something you don’t see much of anymore – affordable merchandise. $20 T-shirts, $10 CD’s, cheap stickers, reasonably priced hoodies, and more were available at Windhand and Satan’s Satyrs’ booths.
Catch them before they leave for a bunch of European dates. Heck, go to Europe and see them (where I’m sure they’ll sell out most, if not all, of their shows). Let their power overwhelm you.
Keep your mind open.
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Just in time for Halloween, doom metal rockers Windhand(Parker Chandler – bass, Dorthia Cottrell – vocals, Garrett Morris – guitar, Ryan Wolfe – drums) have released their newest album, Eternal Return. Fueled in part by one of the band’s co-founders, Asechiah Bogdan, leaving the band in 2015, the death of a friend of the band, and the birth of Garrett Morris’ son. Eternal Return speaks of the cycle of life and death, doors closing and opening, and acknowledging some things will forever remain mysteries. The album’s cover shows a woman who looks not unlike Cottrell standing in a forest and looking a hole in the ice over a frozen lake. Did she just push someone in there? Is she thinking of jumping into the lake? Is she remembering someone who died there, or is she just admiring the cold beauty of it all? I don’t know, but all of those are possibilities when you hear the themes of life and death throughout the record.
The album opens with “Halcyon” and the freight train-like in utero heartbeat of Morris’ son just before Morris’ cosmic chariot guitar kicks in and then Chandler and Wolfe nearly flatten you like the aforementioned train as Cottrell’s haunting voice entices you to stand on the tracks. “Would it kill you to be here?” She asks at one point. It might, but it’s worth the risk.
“Grey Garden” has Windhand sliding effortlessly back and forth between doom metal heaviness and sultry psychedelia. Cottrell’s vocals about, I think, a forgotten cemetery and the lover she’s buried there, display grief, love, and (as always) a hint of danger. The breakdown makes no bones about the band’s love of psychedelic metal, and the track is all the better for it (and good heavens, Morris’ solo…). “Pilgrim’s Rest” is a metal ode to long-forgotten settlements, explorers, and a time when the land was still pure.
If that’s not metal enough for you, I’m sure “First to Die” is from the title alone. Cottrell sings of suffering and sacrifice while Wolfe pounds his kit through the floor and Morris and Chandler unleash the sound of a swarm of killer robotic bees attacking during an earthquake. “First to die, to be born,” Cottrell sings, again reflecting the themes of reincarnation. The title of the instrumental “Light into Dark” keeps up the theme as well, and soars by like a comet nearly hitting the Earth.
“Red Cloud” features some of Wolfe’s heaviest beats and Morris’ heaviest shredding. It’s a stunning piece firmly rooted by Chandler’s bass and Cottrell’s vocals enhance the riffs and beats instead of the other way around on the track. It’s a neat choice by the band. “Eyeshine” is an eleven-minute feast of doom sludge that crawls along like an alligator in a deep, dark lake.
Depending on how you define “Diablerie,” it either means “reckless mischief,” “charismatic wildness,” or “sorcery assisted by the Devil.” Eternal Return is a doom metal album, so you can probably guess which definition Windhand was leaning toward here. Cottrell repeats, “Hope it don’t come back again.” multiple times, leading one to believe the song is about how dabbling in magic sometimes goes horribly wrong and one is lucky to escape with their life.
The album ends with the thirteen-minute “Feather,” which begins with simple strummed guitar chords and a near-military march beat. Cottrell sings, “What is laughing in the wind? What is waiting at the water’s edge?” These could be the thoughts of the woman on the album cover as she’s haunted by something in that frozen lake or in the woods around her. It ends the album on a mysterious note, which is perfect for a record about the unknowable.
Windhand are crafting fine doom metal that deserves to be heard by a wider audience. Cottrell’s spell-casting voice and Wolfe, Morris, and Chandler’s heavy and skilled instrumentation are a powerful combination. They aren’t afraid to explore themes we consider when we close our eyes. While many of us would avoid the frozen lake altogether, Windhand is willing to walk up to it and face whatever is there.
Keep your mind open.
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Windhand (Parker Chandler – bass, Dorthia Cottrell – vocals, Garrett Morris – guitar, Ryan Wolfe – drums) say they’re from Richmond, Virginia, but I think they secretly might be from Hyperboria, Jupiter, or beyond the Black Veil of Space and Time due to the heavy riffage they unleash on their 2015 record Grief’s Infernal Flower.
The opener, “Two Urns,” unleashes enough doom bass by Chandler to power a mission to Mars and soon Cottrell’s incense voice wraps around you like a black velvet cloak, Wolfe pounds out the rhythm of your jittery heart, and Morris shreds open your eyelids. If that’s not enough power for you, don’t fear. “Forest Clouds” comes next and it’s the sound of Tolkien ents marching toward a battle with orc troops from Mordor. Cottrell sings about something dark waiting to awaken from an eight hundred-year sleep. I love how Cottrell’s vocals have a quality that lies between sexy and menacing. She can sing strange incantations, dire warnings, and tales of mystery and the fantastic with equal skill.
Not dark enough? The title of “Crypt Key” should cheer you up. It starts with an acoustic guitar over synths that sound like a faint wind, but then turns into powerful sludge. Cottrell’s vocals on “Tanngrisnir” (a song about one of the goats who pull Thor’s chariot) are layered with just enough reverb to make them spookier than normal, and Wolfe’s drums sound like he’s been transformed into a giant doom metal centipede. “Sparrow” is almost a blues ballad. It’s a nice center to the album that lulls you into a peaceful place amid the dark creatures that lurk throughout the album.
“Hyperion” is the most upbeat song on the record – not necessarily by the lyrics, but definitely by the beat and straight-forward rock riffs by Morris and Chandler. I’m not sure if “Hesperus” refers to the Greek god of the planet Venus / the Evening Star or the poem The Wreck of the Hesperus by Henry Longfellow, but both are appropriate for over fourteen minutes of great stoner metal. Chandler’s bass and Wolfe’s drums are like primordial monsters rising from the depths to bring down a sea vessel, and Morris’ guitar and Cottrell’s vocals seemed designed to herald the arrival of a Venusian god. It abruptly ends, much like the fate of the ship in Longfellow’s poem. “Kingfisher” is about the same length as “Hesperus” and just as heavy. Cottrell sings about something or someone, perhaps even her, being “all-seeing, all-knowing” while Morris throws down riffs powerful enough to probably make him levitate. The album ends with “Aition” (a term for how religions explain the origin of a myth or legend), leaving one to think that the end of the record is actually the beginning to another journey…and Windhand does have another album coming out this October.
It’s a solid record of stoner metal that isn’t angry but certainly is menacing.
