After four years Austria’s longest living Gothic/Post Punk band returns to the stage with their ninth album, deeply rooted in the here and now, an album that could only have been written during the last year. After their cyclic conceptual work about occultism and magic that has spawned over their last 4 albums, it’s time once more to find new ways of creativity and expression. New font, logo, new cover artwork style, even in their 21st year of existence WITS are open to walk the unknownpath that leads to a sound unheard of by the band so far. Raw, direct, without keyboards and atmospheric sounds the music provides the soil for the on point and almost uncomfortable urgent lyrics. Lines like: No one controls the controls. Detractors on the rise. Spreading twisted truths and true lies” (from Detractors) and “Here come the colors. Here come the lights. Trumpets instead of flutes.” (from The Rat King) speak for themselves. Singer Ashley Dayour: “In times like these, you do have a certain kind of responsibility as an artist to your audience and to yourself. It’s important to speak up for the freedom of humanity and art. It’s almost negligent to sit back and just see what happens next, as if all this is nothing of one’s concern.” Besides commentaries of the present state of the world the other big theme of the album is more of a personal matter. A self-critical review of the past and younger days of the band as in the track Scavengers of Time, or the loss of a close person in Morning Falls. The Album closes with one of the moodiest songs in their entire diskography. Exit-Gardens is a self-critical view in the mirror, a warning to one’s self.
