Swedish heavy rock legends WITCHCRAFT have signed to Heavy Psych Sounds for the highly-anticipated release of their seventh studio album "IDAG" this May 23rd, and share the haunting first track "Burning Cross" via Decibel Magazine today.
"A smoldering invocation of their signature ‘70s-laced, riff-heavy sorcery—both raw and hypnotic, yet laced with an unsettling intensity that lingers long after the final note fades. (...) The track exudes that classic Witchcraft alchemy—heavy yet deeply melancholic, brimming with the occult doom energy that made their early records cult favorites." - Decibel Magazine
Stream new single "Burning Cross" at this location or below
More than 20 years after their debut, Witchcraft’s seventh album, ‘IDAG,’ is an awaited full accounting of who they are as a band. Those who have clamored for the return to an earlier sound rooted in ‘70s classic progressive and heavy rock will delight to the strut of “Irreligious Flamboyant Flame” while the eight-minute opening title track is the heaviest the band have ever sounded, and a succession of interspersed acoustic-based pieces helps create a vision of a new, soulfully folkish doom taking shape as they continue to move inexorably forward. Founding guitarist/vocalist Magnus Pelander says: “This album will reap souls and destroy wicked minds. And perhaps mend a couple of broken ones.”
These enigmatic few words from the Swedish band’s main songwriter give clues as to the songs’ intentions; a reference dropped to Coven’s 1969 album, ‘Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls.’ Coven also had a folkish, proto-doomed take at that point in their history, and that multifaceted nature has been a part of Witchcraft all along. On one level, Magnus is winkingly telling you it’s a Witchcraft record. The actual meaning of that becomes clear when you hear the album and find out just how much ‘a Witchcraft record’ can encompass.
The storyline of Witchcraft’s growth, from Pelander’s starting the band in Örebro in 2000 in the wake of his prior outfit Norrsken’s disbanding. A generational landmark of a 2004 self-titled debut helped spark a retroist movement that has become its own subgenre, but Witchcraft never stopped growing. 2005’s ‘Firewood’ and 2007’s ‘The Alchemist’ introduced more progressive sounds, and five years later, the pointedly modern ‘Legend’ established in 2012 that they had moved beyond the analog worship they had been a part of pioneering within the contemporary heavy rock and doom scene.
In 2016, the 2LP ‘Nucleus’ introduced fuller-toned doom, and 2020’s ‘Black Metal’ diverged into moody acoustic minimalism familiar to some fans from Pelander’s early solo work, but different from anything Witchcraft had done prior. ‘IDAG,’ then, is the tie that draws all of this – more than two decades of exploring and growth – together. Whatever they’ve done in the past and whatever they’ll do in the future, ‘IDAG’ feels like a nexus for defining who and what Witchcraft are. Even crazier, that might be the point of the thing. – Words by JJ Koczan
WITCHCRAFT - New album "IDAG"
Out May 23rd, 2025 on Heavy Psych Sounds
International preorder - US preorder
TRACKLIST:
These enigmatic few words from the Swedish band’s main songwriter give clues as to the songs’ intentions; a reference dropped to Coven’s 1969 album, ‘Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls.’ Coven also had a folkish, proto-doomed take at that point in their history, and that multifaceted nature has been a part of Witchcraft all along. On one level, Magnus is winkingly telling you it’s a Witchcraft record. The actual meaning of that becomes clear when you hear the album and find out just how much ‘a Witchcraft record’ can encompass.
The storyline of Witchcraft’s growth, from Pelander’s starting the band in Örebro in 2000 in the wake of his prior outfit Norrsken’s disbanding. A generational landmark of a 2004 self-titled debut helped spark a retroist movement that has become its own subgenre, but Witchcraft never stopped growing. 2005’s ‘Firewood’ and 2007’s ‘The Alchemist’ introduced more progressive sounds, and five years later, the pointedly modern ‘Legend’ established in 2012 that they had moved beyond the analog worship they had been a part of pioneering within the contemporary heavy rock and doom scene.
In 2016, the 2LP ‘Nucleus’ introduced fuller-toned doom, and 2020’s ‘Black Metal’ diverged into moody acoustic minimalism familiar to some fans from Pelander’s early solo work, but different from anything Witchcraft had done prior. ‘IDAG,’ then, is the tie that draws all of this – more than two decades of exploring and growth – together. Whatever they’ve done in the past and whatever they’ll do in the future, ‘IDAG’ feels like a nexus for defining who and what Witchcraft are. Even crazier, that might be the point of the thing. – Words by JJ Koczan
WITCHCRAFT - New album "IDAG"
Out May 23rd, 2025 on Heavy Psych Sounds
International preorder - US preorder
TRACKLIST:
1. Idag
2. Drömmar Av Is
3. Drömmen Om Död Och Förruttnelse
4. Om Du Vill 01 Gläntan (Längtan)
5. Burning Cross
6. Irreligious Flamboyant Flame
7. Christmas
8. Spirit
9. Om Du Vill (Slight Return)
All music, lyrics, guitars and vocals by Magnus Pelander. Bass performed by Philip Pilossian, with drums by Par Hjulstrom. Mixed and mastered by David Storm. Artwork by John Bauer.
WITCHCRAFT links
2. Drömmar Av Is
3. Drömmen Om Död Och Förruttnelse
4. Om Du Vill 01 Gläntan (Längtan)
5. Burning Cross
6. Irreligious Flamboyant Flame
7. Christmas
8. Spirit
9. Om Du Vill (Slight Return)
All music, lyrics, guitars and vocals by Magnus Pelander. Bass performed by Philip Pilossian, with drums by Par Hjulstrom. Mixed and mastered by David Storm. Artwork by John Bauer.
WITCHCRAFT links
Thanks to Purple Sage PR for all of the details.
