There is a moment of conversion, the instant a band stops being something you merely admire and becomes something you kneel before. Mine came in two stations. The first was in 2020, at the altar of Mother, where In This Moment's witchy overtones, industrial crunch, and ritual imagery first drew me toward the pew. The second came in 2025, at Rock Fest in Wisconsin, watching Maria Brink preside over the stage like a priestess mid-rite with crushing riffs for incense, hypnotic light for stained glass. That night the admiration became devotion.
Now comes Witch, and it plays like the culmination of every liturgy this band has ever half-whispered. It takes the sacred hush of Mother and sets it ablaze with the arena-sized fire of their live shows: confession and combustion in the same breath. The record opens its rite with "Shame," and the mood is immediately oppressive, immediately seductive with sin dressed as sacrament. Travis Johnson's bassline moves like a processional, slow and certain, before Chris Howorth's down-tuned riffs cut through like a blade through vestments. Brink's voice moves between penitent whisper and full-throated scream, confessor and confessed in the same body. It is less an opening track than an entrance hymn as the band announces they've come to conduct their darkest mass yet.
"I Want To Believe" arrives next, a duet of doubt and devotion with Dayseeker joining the pews. It's an early high point, In This Moment's theatrical metal harmonizing with Dayseeker's soaring post-hardcore like two choirs trading verses. Randy Weitzel's rhythm work builds a wall thick enough to hold a cathedral roof, while Kent Diimmel's drumming keeps time like a metronome counting rosary beads that brings out that feeling of precision, relentlessness, and devotion. Then the tempo lowers for "Crawl" and "Into The Dark," and the record moves from nave to crypt. "Crawl" (my personal favorite on this record) is a slow procession, Diimmel's kick drum falling like a footstep down stone stairs, Brink's vocals aching with vulnerability, endurance, quiet defiance, and the sound of someone praying through gritted teeth. "Into The Dark" follows with ambient electronics and stark guitar, building a soundscape fit for a midnight vigil at the edge of a festival field.
The record's midsection turns fully sacramental with "Sleeping With The Enemy" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger." The former is all teeth full of aggressive verses collapsing into a breakdown like a confession finally forced out. The latter is the record's most delicate genuflection: Brink's softest phrasing yet, before the chorus rises into something towering, synth pads glowing like candlelight, Howorth's leads flickering like votives. Then comes "Heretic," and the mass breaks entirely. Kim Dracula arrives like a rite gone wrong and becomes unhinged, genre-bending, refusing verse and chorus alike in favor of erratic shifts and chaotic theater. Howorth and Weitzel trade riffs like dueling sermons while Brink and Dracula hurl lines back and forth like accusations across a confessional screen. It's the record's most visceral shock, proof the band still wants to defile its own liturgy.
After that violence, the record turns inward with "Father" and "Without Me There's No You." "Father" is the record's true confession that's stark, solemn, aching with the sacred vulnerability that first drew blood on Mother. "Without Me There's No You" returns to industrial groove, Johnson's bassline driving forward with the certainty of a hymn everyone already knows the words to, and that's destined to become a fixture of the band's future services. The final rites are two covers, each a kind of borrowed scripture. "Another Brick In The Wall," with Kat Von D, is stripped down into something slow and menacing, with Kat Von D's dark wave electronics merging with Brink's voice until the old anthem becomes a chant, repeated until it means something new. And closing the record is Nine Inch Nails' "Something I Can Never Have," stripped almost bare with synth in place of guitar, ambient noise standing in for silence, Brink's voice raw as a final admission. It's less an ending than a last rite: not a bang, but a lingering, beautiful ache and the sound of a confession finally, fully released.
Witch is a band fully in command of its own gospel: dark, heavy, theatrical, and unrelentingly devout to its own vision. Having followed In This Moment from that first Mother service in 2020 through their communion at Rock Fest in 2025, Witch feels like the definitive rite: the moment admiration becomes something closer to faith.
Confess your sins. Then turn it up with Crawl:
Go give them a follow if you haven't already: ➕𝐼𝒩 𝒯𝐻𝐼𝒮 𝑀𝒪𝑀𝐸𝒩𝒯➕
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