REVIEW: Witchsorrow - The Devil And All His Works
- Mia Gailey
- 46 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Two decades deep into their slow-burning crusade, WITCHSORROW return with The Devil And All His Works, an album that doesn’t so much revisit doom metal’s foundations as sink back into them like they were carved in stone. This is not a reinvention record, nor does it pretend to be. Instead, it is a reaffirmation of purpose: heavy, patient, and utterly committed to the genre’s most monolithic traditions.
From the outset, WITCHSORROW make it clear they are still operating on their own gravitational scale. Omnia Finiuntur opens the record with a sprawling sense of inevitability, stretching over ten minutes of slow-burn riffs and suffocating atmosphere. Nothing here rushes. Everything drags deliberately, like iron chains across stone, setting the tone for what follows: a record built on weight rather than speed, mood rather than momentum.
That philosophy carries into Bacchus, one of the album’s earlier standouts and a track that feels like the band fully locking into their groove. The riffs are thick and unyielding, while the pacing allows each note to land with real consequence. There’s a ritualistic quality to it all, as if the band are less performing songs and more conjuring them.
Hades Chains continues that descent, tightening the atmosphere without increasing the tempo. Here, WITCHSORROW lean into repetition in a way that feels hypnotic rather than redundant. The guitar tone is cavernous, the drums patient, and the vocals buried just enough to feel distant yet authoritative. It’s doom in its most traditional sense: oppressive, immersive, and unashamedly slow.
Midway point Altar stretches things further still, acting as the album’s centrepiece in both scale and intent. It is here that the band’s strength in dynamics becomes most apparent. Rather than relying on constant heaviness, they allow space to form between crushing passages, making the heavier moments land even harder when they arrive. The result is a track that feels like a slow ritual unfolding rather than a conventional song structure.
If Altar is the ritual, then In Triumph We Rot!!! is the declaration. One of the album’s more direct cuts, it carries a surprising sense of urgency without abandoning the band’s core identity. Lyrically and conceptually, it leans into devotion itself — a life spent in service to doom, not as a style but as a calling. It’s one of the most immediate tracks here, and arguably the closest WITCHSORROW come to an anthem.
Lamentation briefly strips things back into a short, sombre interlude, offering a moment of breathing space before the final stretch. It functions less as a standalone piece and more as a threshold, guiding the listener into the record’s closing statement. That final statement arrives with A Quintessence Of Dust, the album’s focus track and most expansive moment of clarity. Featuring a guest guitar solo from EMPLOYED TO SERVE's Sammy Urwin, the track pushes the band’s sound into a more expressive space without breaking its core framework. The solo cuts through the density rather than overpowering it, adding a flash of colour to an otherwise monochrome landscape of doom.
Ultimately, The Devil And All His Works doesn’t aim to modernise doom metal, nor does it attempt to escape its lineage. Instead, WITCHSORROW double down on it completely. This is a record built on tradition, conviction, and endurance — a reminder that in the right hands, repetition isn’t limitation, it’s power. For those already drawn to the slow churn of classic doom, this will feel like home. For everyone else, it’s a stark, uncompromising wall of sound that doesn’t ask for attention — it simply takes it.
Score: 8/10
The Devil And All His Works will be released on 3rd July 2026 via Church Road Records.
Words: Mia Gailey
Photos: Leanne Elizabeth
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