Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds And Reaps Souls

(Words by Richard Lewis, Doomfinder General)

Coven are one of those bands that time forgot. They are pretty much entirely responsible for creating the occult rock genre (along with Black Widow) and had they been around today they would probably be huge, but since their debut came out in 1969 there was a lot of negativity around their lyrical themes. Instead, they were dropped from their record label and had their debut album taken out of circulation.

The main question with albums like this is are they actually worth listening to or are you just trying to be more elitist than the people around you? Luckily enough, the music more than holds up to the band's reputation. Powered by Jinx Dawson's excellent vocals, Coven cover all the topics that occult rock is still using today - namely witches, satan, demons, satan and witches. The opener "Black Sabbath" creeps and crawls along with a sermon-like quality, "Wicked Woman" gallops along with psychy guitar flourishes and "Pact With Lucifer" shows just how impressive a vocalist Coven have but every song on the album stands out for different reasons.

However, one thing which I think dates the album is the last track. "Satanic Mass" is a 13 minute recording of an actual satanic mass and while I can appreciate that 46 years ago people might have found it scary it just sounds cheesy listening to it today and there is no need for it to be 13 minutes long. But still, since it's just a recording and at the end of the album I don't feel it detracts from the overall quality of the album. Just skip it and enjoy one of the finest rock albums around.

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

These old Sabbath records are everywhere in abundance and picking one up is retardly easy because they are so cheap. Any metalhead worth his salt should appreciate the first four Sabbath records, in my rather elitist and useless opinion. This is Sabbath record number three, and is still lodged firmly in the category of "Good Sabbath", thank holy fuck. As far as I'm concerned, Sabotage onwards things start to go a bit pear shaped. As soon as Dio came into the picture, well that's another story for another time. I can literally feel the backlash of various opinions and arguements as I type this!

Master of Reality opens with one of my favourite Black Sabbath songs, "Sweet Leaf". At the price this comes at these days this record is worth buying on this song alone. Whatever your opinion on da 'erb, there is no denying the sheer excellence and rifftacularness of this track. It is chilled out and heavy as fuck at the same time, something we are (thankfully) used to thanks to the stoner and doom genres of today but back in it's time it was something else entirely, just like the whole Sabbath sound. Closing side A is "Children of the Grave", another Sabbath favourite of mine, percussion heavy and almost progressive in parts. Side B sexplodes into the acoustic "Orchid" before giving way to another Sabbath favourite. "Lord of this World".

I could go into every single song but then that would be a bit boring I think, especially on the subject of Black Sabbath. Sometimes I feel a bit dickish reviewing albums that have been out for years, so considering Master of Reality was out in 1971 and the world and his fucking cat have heard this album please excuse me if I don't go into too much depth. Classic shits, classic songs. If you haven't heard this then...well your on the wrong website ha ha!