### The Witch: Pachyderm storm

#### 04/10/12 || gk

Just today, my state government in all its wisdom issued a notice to all citizens to make sure to include the number of elephants we rear at home for the latest livestock census. I guess it’s only appropriate that I’m stubbing an EP called “Pachyderm storm”. This debut recording from this Italian band and “Pachyderm storm” is quite a promising effort. The band specializes in groovy songs with some memorable riffing that goes from traditional heavy metal to slightly thrashy bits to modern groove metal. “Iron head” has a pretty cool Motorhead meets modern metal sound while title song Pachyderm storm starts off with a Southern rock feel with its bendy guitar intro and has a groovy middle section that works quite well. Not everything is great here. The vocals, a sort of harsh, sandpaper approach gets a bit monotonous and the drum sound is dodgy to say the least. It also feels like The Witch is not completely sure which direction to go in so the songs sound like a badly mixed cocktail of various influences at times. Still, there’s enough here to point at the potential that this band has and based on this EP, The Witch is a band to keep an eye on.

7/10: with hope for the future.