Neanderthal rockers boast actual Dinosaur on drums.

Fifteen years after he thought about ditching guitar to drum for pre-Grohl Nirvana, J Mascis has a break from the Dinosaur Jr reunion to beat traps for Witch, an exercise in monolithic heaviness featuring members of New England avant-folkers Feathers. Their debut is a work of sludgy grace, over 40 minutes of epic epochal riffing, guitarist Asa Irons’ sepulchral licks sacred acts of Iommi worship. singer Kyle Thomas’s androgynous vocals –evoking Plant and Bolan at their most hippy-dippy–perfectly suit lyrics awash in patchouli mysticism (Seer),
although the groups’s fret-melting paean to sleepyhead Rip Van Winkle is almost a dopey joke too far. But Witch have got a convincing spook that’s all their own.

Steve Chick