Magnus Pelander has spent over two decades proving that Witchcraft is whatever he needs it to be. From the lo-fi Pentagram worship of the early records through the progressive detours of Legend and Nucleus, the full acoustic withdrawal of Black Metal, and last year’s electric comeback Idag, the Örebro project has never stayed in one place long enough to be pinned down. A Sinner’s Child, a five-track EP on Heavy Psych Sounds, functions as an epilogue to Idag and a distillation of everything Pelander does well: songwriting that sounds simple until you notice how much it’s carrying.
“Drömmen om Död och Förruttnelse” (The Dream of Death and Decay) opens with a title that promises heaviness and delivers it, but not in the way you’d expect. The proto-doom is there in the low end and the deliberate pace, but the melody sitting on top of it is almost tender. Pelander’s voice, weathered and unadorned, does most of the emotional work. There’s no hiding behind production or arrangement here. The song is the song.
“A Sinner’s Child,” the title track, moves into folk territory with acoustic guitar and a vocal line that climbs without straining. “Even Darker Days” strips things back further still into acoustic dirge territory. The problem is that the EP’s stripped-back approach, while honest, also makes the pacing feel sluggish. Without the full band to provide contrast, the tracks start to blur together. The shifts between proto-doom and folk that should create tension instead feel like different shades of the same haze.
“Själen Reser Sig” (The Soul Rises) returns to proto-doom with a riff that anchors the track while the vocal melody floats above it. The interplay between heaviness and fragility is the EP’s defining quality, and this track captures it best. The closer “Sinner’s Clear Confusion” extends the title track’s folk sensibility across five minutes that function as the EP’s most expansive piece, the guitars opening up into a space that the shorter tracks only hint at.
The production varies across tracks, recorded at different studios by different engineers, including Tony Reed. This could be a weakness, but here it works in the EP’s favor: each track has its own sonic character, which suits a release that deliberately moves between genres and moods. The acoustic tracks are recorded with warmth and proximity. The heavier tracks have a raw, unpolished quality that makes them feel lived-in rather than produced. Pelander’s voice is mixed forward and dry throughout, which is the right choice for material this dependent on vocal delivery.
Standout tracks: Själen Reser Sig, A Sinner’s Child, Drömmen om Död och Förruttnelse
A Sinner’s Child is Pelander at his most exposed, and that vulnerability is genuine. But stripped-down only works when every note carries weight, and across these five tracks there are stretches where the intimacy drifts into something closer to lethargy. The songwriting is there. The thread connecting the pieces is harder to find.
