Forged in Portland, once again under the dutiful watch of Melvins and Neurosis producer Billy Anderson, Castle’s follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2014 opus, Under Siege, is their most magnetic, metallic and melodic offering to date and sees them at the peak of their powers.
Unashamedly worshipping at the altar of all things doom and NWOBHM, the now LA-based bunch’s fourth full-length is an exciting blast of old-school heavy metal thunder bristling with hooks that’ll embed themselves in your brain. Singer and bassist Liz Blackwell’s inimitable croon calls to mind the power and passion of the Wilson Sisters in their pomp. Opener Black Widow is perhaps their best recorded moment thus far and is a thrilling, chilling, infectiously catchy crossover hit in the making, while Traitors Rune and Flash Of The Pentagram, which borrow passages from occultists Eliphas Levi’s Transcendental Magic and Aleister Crowley’s Amphora respectively, will have plenty more people under Castle’s spell.
