L.A. Witch
DOGGOD
SUICIDE SQUEEZE
Fourteen years into their creative partnership, L.A. Witch have reached a new zenith of musicianship on their new record DOGGOD, showcasing their artistic growth, technical maturity, and a significant songwriting evolution. Recorded in Paris, drummer Ellie English, bassist Irita Pai, and vocalist/guitarist Sade Sanchez perfect an atmospheric brand of post-punk on their third album. While we’ve heard the band evolve on each subsequent release as they’ve played with more complex chord progressions and scales, this latest project has a goth-inspired touch that’s absent from their more psychedelic past. Think Men I Trust if they were heavily inspired by The Cure’s guitar tone on Seventeen and the darker, erotic lyrics of Pornography—or even The Cramps. This mix of bright post-punk guitar and taboo Freudianism is a pleasing mix that feels familiar, but still takes you to a unique musical dimension.
DODGOD kicks off with “Icicle,” a driving track with twangy, reverbed-out guitar that introduces the record’s balance of throwback post-punk stylings and modern production. “All the shadows / I always knew follow me / All the shadows / I didn't want you to see,” sings Sanchez. The tension of the bright guitars and darker aspects of the psyche expressed in the lyrics clash, and like a Hegelian dialectic (or the shapeshifting creature from The Thing), both ideas combine to create something new and interesting. Later on the album, “Kiss Me Deep” pillages a bit of Rather Ripped era Sonic Youth with lyrics that read like an innuendo about the pleasures of cunnilingus (“You licked me like a hungry dog,” Sanchez sings, leaving little to the imagination). Instrumentally, it seduces the listener with its hypnotic, unchanging beat and repeating guitar lines, a sonic manifestation of sexually suggestive gyrations.
Things get interesting again on the last couple of tracks as L.A. Witch showcase a foray into synths. It’s a subtle addition to the sound they’ve previously established, but it’s novel enough to give the last stretch of the album some lift. “Play with primitive impulses / Satisfy what you indulge in / Hang me on a leash / ’Til I wait for my release,” sings Sanchez on “DOGGOD,” a palindrome that seems to signify some sort of dom/sub dynamic. As with the title track, it’s fun to dissect and think about the entirety of DOGGOD while immersed in the music. The moody chord progressions L.A. Witch create complement Sanchez’s oblique lyrics, and Pai and English devise an enchanting rhythm section that adds to the album’s infectiousness. These variables symmetrically come together to help L.A. Witch shine bright.
