Arkham Witch – I Am Providence (Metal On Metal 2015 CD)

 Before summing up the list of 2015's best albums, I'll have a go with this nice release, since the people at MoM Records always so kindly send me their releases. What we have here is the third album by this exceptional band. Before I even listened to it the first time, I reacted on the tracklist that showed not less than 20 songs, of which most weren't longer than 2-3 minutes. A huge change compared to the one on their previous album, Legions Of The Deep, were the 10 songs were between 2 and 8 minutes long. And when inserting I Am Providence in the CD-player, it quickly becomes clear that more things than the duration of the songs has changed since their last album.

 While I consider Legions Of The Deep more or less a pure heavy metal assault (with some hints of doom), and even though it might not be a complete change of their sound, this album has got a whole different vibe. The short and straight forward songwriting makes actually makes me think of punk a lot of times. 

 Lyrically though, things have basically stayed the same. The fascination of weird tales with a sense of humor always present is something that I guess always will stay intact when it comes to this band. I can't say that I'm very familiar with this kind of fiction they seems to be very obsessed with, other than bumping into such themes in metal-songs every now and then, but I must say that the frequent referring to it in Arkham Witch's songs is something that definitely makes them more memorable. If you're looking for something unique and out of the norm-sounding, I recommend you to check this out. I can't imagine that there's any band out there that sounds even close to this. 7,5/10

P.S. In addition to the new album, a re-issue of it's sold out precursor Legions Of The Deep (Respawned) was also released at the same time. Even though I must say that they really managed to renew themselves in a very interesting way with I Am Providence, I think this one is just a little bit better. I remember listening a lot to this when it came out about three years ago. Such a perfect and powerful fusion of heavy metal, speed metal and doom. The cover art is stunning a well, needs to be released on vinyl! 8/10