Wayward, witchy, doom metal from San Francisco that draws in equal part from occult preoccupations of proto-metallers Coven as it does crooked-jawed, roadhouse, ass-kickers The Obsessed. Castle's name is shorthand for their literary occult philosophy which they call "Castle of the Mind," a worldview culled from the writings of William Blake and Charles Baudelaire and which informs the majority of the dark incantations found in their lyrics. Evil Remains is Castle's sixth LP, but it could just as easily be their debut with how raw and hungry the duo of Elizabeth Blackwell and Mat Davis sound here, iterating on the cursed and contorted grooves and miasmic atmosphere that has defined their career, and giving '70s downer dirges the rough-and-tumble, chopped, and bare ravenous intrigue of a beast of legend stalking the moonlight for a pale, defenseless neck to sink its fangs into. Standing out even amongst Castle's fortified attributes is Elizabeth's coolly ensnaring vocals that always seem to be flowing in and around you as a graveyard fog, slipping through your pores and carrying slivers of your soul away into the night with their billowing egress. Reclaim the night with the urgent, dirgey, moonlight descent sheathed in a malevolent co-deviant repartee that beckons the conflagration hither to one's effigy-prepared bosom on "Queen of Death," the sanguine-draining, nocturnal viper melee of "Nosferatu Nights," the seductively caustic and necromantic echo of a promise of vengeance that is "Deja Voodoo," and the undulating, warped passage of flexing guitar melodies that harrows down the gorge of a geist-shredding, black-winged retribution for an eons-old betrayal on "She." When the winds and black magic prevail, there is no place stonier or more serene than Castle's keep.
Beat your heart out (Hammerheart Records).