Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer (2008)

   Burning Witch was formed on the ruins of the very promising, but unfortunately short lived project Thorr's Hammer. Burning Witch also didn't last for so long, but all their songs were re-released on a double CD compilation to make life easier for the fans who have lost the line meanwhile.
   Their music might sounded surprising if anyone expected something similar to Thorr's Hammer. The only feature that stayed was the intense doom influence, but even though they were never known about their bright, cheering up sound, with Burning Witch they went forward by creating a so obscure and desperate image, that is so far from the term "audience-friendly" as it's possible. The mix of pain, hatred and suffering is reflecting from their noisy sludge/doom sound, that came from a high level of self-destruction by heavy drug abuse. This of course counts as usual in sludge metal, but their music reached a certain border by the noisy sound and  disharmony, that's not reachable for anyone; and the assistance of the screaming/cawing vocal performance is also quite impressive. The main view is albe to ruin the nerves of the listener and to summon really bad feelings meanwhile. The way how they introduced the depths of self-made suffering may be suitable to use on group therapies to show to junkies how miserable, endlessly sick and unbearable they can become. But for those who may find this kind of instant brain damage enjoyable, "Crippled Lucifer" will not cause any disappointment.