No Witch is The Cave Singers’ third album, but it’s the first we’ve ever heard. It’s classic rock Americana filled with the gravelly tones of Pete Quirk, but there’s more than a few hints of psychedelia to give the album a good level of depth.
No Witch opens with Gifts and the Raft, a beautiful lullaby of a song, filled out with echoey reverb, simple toe tapping drums and a mean set of strings. This leads on to Swim Club really well, which is another slow paced, chilled out violin laced track.
However, the relaxing intros are pieced by Black Leaf, a much faster, driven beast with Quirk’s vocals up to road ripping pace. Things settle back again for Falls, which is a bit too easily forgettable, but things get interesting again with the Kula Shaker-like Indian sound on Outer Realms running alongside the guitar and tripped out psych inspired vocals.
Haller Lake has an addictive rhythm, but All Land Crabs and Divinity Ghosts passes by uneventfully. Clever Creatures has some warm riffs, but a bit too much country to make it likeable. Haystacks continues the country sounds, unfortunately, which lead into Distant Sures, another pretty song similar to the openers that has some nice finger picking.
Faze Wave returns to the Hindi-Americana of Outer Realms brilliantly, but No Prosecution If We Bail is sort of a disappointment to finish on, although the wild screams are a lot of fun.
The Cave Singers’ third album, No Witch, is filled with excellent music, a good mix of sounds and a number of songs that you could listen to for days on end. However, the album’s problem lies in the fact that it doesn’t have one or two absolute stand-out tracks to make it excellent.
The Cave Singers, No Witch album review – 3.6/5
