Margarita Witch Cultâs Strung Out In Hell doesnât play nice. It drags you by the hair straight into the furnace and keeps you there until your skin blisters. This is Birmingham metal the way itâs meant to be: filthy, cracked, ringing with that factory clang that never leaves the bloodstream of this city. You can hear the ghosts of Sabbath thick in the smoke, and these guys donât hide it – they lean hard into that worship, bowing at the altar with every riff and letting the feedback ring like church bells cracked in half.
The record doesnât move in straight lines. One second itâs swamp-crawl doom, the next itâs all teeth and thrash, chasing you down an alley with a broken bottle. Riffs lurch and buckle, tempos flip without warning. Itâs not tight, itâs not clean, and thatâs exactly the point. Thereâs menace in the looseness, a sense that the whole thing could cave in at any moment. And when it does, they just laugh and light another fire.
It doesnât sound like a second album. It sounds like a band possessed, wringing every last shriek and squeal out of their gear. Thereâs nothing âcareer-buildingâ here. This is noise for the sake of noise, riffs stacked on riffs until the walls shake. Some bands polish their rough edges by album two. Margarita Witch Cult sharpened theirs and aimed them straight at the jugular.
Listening to Strung Out In Hell feels like being trapped at the afterparty nobody survives. Volume maxed, lights flickering, somebody speaking in tongues in the corner. Itâs ugly, itâs mean, and itâs alive.
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Released by Heavy Psych Sounds on July 18th
