Witch Mountain Mesmerizes Los Angeles

By Andrew Bansal

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April 5th 2015, Los Globos, Los Angeles CA: In 2014, longstanding Portland Oregon-based heavy worshippers Witch Mountain announced that they were amicably parting ways with singer Uta Plotkin, and the world of doom metal collectively held on with bated breath to find out where it would lead this incredible band, and what they would do next. Much to the relief of their fanbase worldwide, they recruited nineteen-year old singer Kayla Dixon as the band’s new frontwoman, and soon after recording a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Sleeping Village’ for an upcoming tribute album on Cleopatra Records, Witch Mountain embarked on a US run, first supporting Yob for a few dates and ending the tour with a string of headline shows. This brought them to Los Angeles on Easter Sunday, for a gig put together by the tireless gentlemen in Church Of The 8th Day and Thee Static Age, also featuring locals Glaare, Dead Dawn and Rare Breed. Attendees that had seen Witch Mountain in their past incarnations really did not know what to expect, but the level of curiosity was sky-high.

Doors opened at 8 PM and the show started at 8:40 as Rare Breed took the stage to put forth a set of Sabbath-inspired stoner rock tunes that fit this bill perfectly and turned out to be an ideal way to ease everyone in for what was to follow. The simple three-piece setup served them well and besides solid guitar, vocals and bass, the drumming was particularly impressive and sonically took center stage for a good portion of the set. After them came Dead Dawn, changing the environment with a decidedly more gothic/punk/retro vibe and bringing a visual aspect to go with it as their singer utilized every bit of the stage and some of the general admission floor to express herself to the fullest. Glaare rounded up the local support strongly with an unmistakably excellent contrast between their chilled-out instrumentation and the sheer intensity in their frontwoman’s voice and personality. This band has featured on several Church Of The 8th Day/Thee Static Age shows, but this was my first time witnessing them and their amazing performance here made me feel like a complete loser for not checking them out earlier. The top-notch quality of the live music presented to the audience so far, along with the laid-back Bohemian atmosphere inside this venue made time fly, and before we realized it, the headline act was ready to play.

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Witch Mountain

Witch Mountain began at 11:20 and for the next 45 minutes, played a truly spellbinding set that exceeded all expectations by quite some margin. To original members Nathan Carson (drums) and Rob Wrong (guitar), the songwriting and performance aspect of their respective instruments comes as second nature by now, but the onus was on the duo to find a vocalist that would do justice to Witch Mountain’s back catalog and be capable of carrying them forward in a manner worthy of representing the band’s name and reputation. In Kayla Dixon, they have succeeded beyond any doubt in doing so, and she proved that a better frontwoman for Witch Mountain simply cannot be imagined.

Dixon’s expertise and experience as a singer and performer from the age of five was abundantly on display here as she owned this stage with her voice and presence. While former singer Uta Plotkin wowed the world with her extraordinarily soaring vocal heights, Dixon possesses greater range and texture, and with her vocal and physical expressions she certainly adds several degrees of aggression and theatricality to Witch Mountain’s live show. She triumphed equally at performing material off of the latest album ‘Mobile Of Angels’ as well as the older selections. By presenting this frontwoman to audiences worldwide, Witch Mountain are emphatically reinstating that true singing talent still holds relevance in a genre that largely focuses on all things heavy. Dixon’s unreal, jaw-dropping, mesmerizing performance was the best by a vocalist Los Angeles has seen and will see all year (and this statement comes from a guy who has been to literally every show). This leaves fans in no doubt about the future existence of this band, and vindicates its founders’ recruitment of this singer as the best decision they have made till date. Plotkin’s impact on the band’s history is indelible, but the Dixon-fronted incarnation is Witch Mountain 2.0 in every sense of the term.

Overall, this was an insanely high-quality show from start to finish. Church Of The 8th Day and Thee Static Age shows are almost predictably awesome and invariably flawless in their selection of bands, which is based purely on musical talent and not on pay-to-play or popularity. Regular attendees of these promoters’ events are yet to see a truly bad band, and the day it happens, hell would certainly freeze over.

Set List:
01. Psycho Animundi
02. Beekeeper
03. Your Corrupt Ways (Sour The Hymn)
04. Can’t Settle
05. Shelter

Remaining tour dates:
4/07 – Oakland CA @ Golden Bull
4/08 – Sacramento CA @ Press Club
4/10 – Seattle WA @ Victory
4/11 – Portland OR @ Star Theater

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