Imprecation of Unbeing

This is the first review I'm doing for the review challenge, and I figured I'd start it off by reviewing Witchmoon. Witchmoon has been a band I've been getting into a lot lately, and they surprisingly don't get a lot of love here. The sole member of the band released his debut album "Imprecation of Unbeing" last year, and while it isn't my favorite raw black metal album ever, it does have a lot going for it. From the unique ambient moments to the sorrow guitars, this album is pretty great.

Let's start off with the instruments. Raw black metal is infamous for having some terrible production, but Witchmoon takes it to a whole new level. The guitars sound very distorted and broken, and you can't even tell it apart from the drums. Speaking of which, the drums beat in a rather repetitive pattern, and it's rare for it to switch up. The bass is pretty much nonexistence, so the lack of foundation makes it all sound like a mess. This can be bad, especially with the first track "Painful Visions Return", as the guitar riffs are very disorganized in composition and sound terrible. However, there are still plenty of great moments in this album, like in the track "Secret Spell". The soft siren-like sound of the synth brings in a spatial atmosphere in the track and is a good transition to the next track "Unbeing", where the guitars plays some melancholy riffs and is easily the best track on the album. The rawness of the production can be harmful to the instruments at times, but when it works, it works fantastically.

What isn't so good however are the vocals. The vocals may not show up a lot in the album, but when it does show up, it's not very good. The vocals consist of nothing but screams, and is similar to those of Xasthur. However, the vocals are largely buried by the poor production, and the shrieks are drowned out by the loud guitars and blastbeats. Furthermore, there are moments where the voice sounds less human-like and more like that of a monster. It seems like a decent idea to give the album a more bestial-tone, but then again, that idea is tarnished by the raw production drowning it in noise. The vocals aren't the worst I've heard in black metal, but they do need some work.

There isn't much to say about this album, as it is more like your basic run-of-the-mill raw black metal album, but it does have some great moments. Despite the vocals being trash a lot of the times, the instruments can sound good when it's not being noisy for the sake of being noisy, and the atmospheric tracks sound fantastic. While this album isn't the best, I still recommend you give it a chance if you're in the mood for some rawness.