Review by Jophelerx on March 24, 2026.

San Francisco's Castle, a project born of a collaboration between guitarist Mat Davis and bassist/vocalist Liz Blackwell, seems by its emergence at the beginning of the 2010s to have been riding the wave created by female-fronted doom/occult rock acts like Jex Thoth, The Devil's Blood, and Blood Ceremony, but upon paying closer attention, one may realize that the band's ethos and underlying musical foundations have more in common with acts like Christian Mistress or even something like Hour of 13 than it does with Jex Thoth. Castle is clearly a project born of inspiration by the two primary songwriters/musicians, one which just happens to feature a female vocalist rather than using the concept as a gimmick, novelty, or worse, a way to appeal to the lowest common denominator via over-sexualization (not that any of the aforementioned acts are particularly guilty of that, but it's certainly happened in the genre). Instead, Castle feels like more of a jam band inspired by the early days of heavy metal in the 1970s, primarily Black Sabbath and perhaps a dash of Pentagram, a three-piece with a very stripped-down, DIY aesthetic that's refreshing in an era full of overly-polished, often bloated releases that frequently felt like they needed to fill as much of the disc's 80-minute capacity as possible. At 8 tracks and just under 36 minutes, Castle's sophomore effort Blacklands never overstays its welcome and is about as organic and respectful of the listener's time as any release in the genre I've heard from the 21st century.

In fact, while the band does make use of some occult lyrical themes and imagery, it feels more like an afterthought and an homage to the forefathers of the genre than any kind of gimmick or real attempt to push any kind of ideology. The band is all about musical ideas first, creating an atmosphere that's very reminiscent of autumn, particularly a dark night around Halloween, but never goes into truly macabre or morose territory, keeping things fun and energetic without a need to go deeper, keeping things simple because it knows you're here for the guitar work anyway, and on that it delivers in spades. Mat Davis is an axeman who knows his instrument well, keeps his playing tight and clearly is very talented but never even slightly showy or over-indulgent, very much in the vein of Tony Iommi, though he does up the ante by usually having two guitar melodies (riffs/leads most of the time, though occasional dual lead harmonies pop up during the solo sections), all of which are handled by Davis as far as I'm aware. The songwriting here is top-notch for the most part, striking an excellent balance between keeping things engaging without ever letting an idea fester for longer than it needs to. Blackwell's vocals are the icing on the cake, but they're certainly very tasty icing, with her recognizable style, one that's low, gruff, and wild, while still retaining a hint of allure and mystery, similar to Christine Davis of Christian Mistress but not quite as raspy and smoky. She doesn't display a big range or a lot of technical ability, but she makes up for that with oodles of character and passion, much in the way Ozzy worked so well in the context of Sabbath but would have been out of place just about anywhere else.

The only real low point of the album is the track "Storm Below the Mountain," where Mat Davis handles vocal duties for some reason. He is not a talented vocalist, in terms of technical skill or charisma or otherwise, and even moreso it feels like his decision to focus on vocals detracts from the guitar work, which is noticeably less complex and "finished" here, for lack of a better term, with the main riff a very staccato gallop that almost gives me a "pirate metal" vibe a la something like Alestorm. It makes sense given that the band clearly feels like a jam band in which most of the compositions were probably born of live experimentation. I just don't know why they saw fit to include this on the album when it's clearly a lesser thing compared to the rest of what we have here. Perhaps they simply didn't have any other material ready and, given the album's already short runtime, needed to pad it out. It certainly hearkens back to the early Sabbath days in that regard, where already short albums featured padding due to being contractually obligated to release an album or more a year. Still, that's an element of the early-to-mid 70s I could have done without.

Highlights, on the other hand, include opener "Ever Hunter" which features a driving yet slightly ominous main riff that plays with rhythm ever so slightly to give everything a playful, unpredictable quality that shows what this duo (plus drummer Al McCartney, who does a good job but doesn't seem to have been particularly involved in the songwriting process given the band's consistent sound across multiple drummers) are really capable of. "Corpse Candles" follows things up with another banger, a similar opening riff that leads into an even more interesting and distinctive main guitar melody that starts with a slow-ish gallop (canter?) and has a weird bit of noodling for the riff's second half that's unexpected but just works really well. It's hard to describe accurately as someone who's not a guitar player, but it's a really memorable riff, easily the most interesting thing on the album, and overall, this is probably the coolest number here, with everything just coming together in a way that stands out while still playing to the band's strengths. Title track "Blacklands" is the third great song here (though everything else besides "Storm Below the Mountain" is at least solid), with a trancelike, ritualistic atmosphere that really draws you in and rivals "Corpse Candles" in terms of overall impact. While I think the guitar work on "Corpse Candles" stands out more, here Blackwell's vocals are at a high point, with some gorgeously shamanic vocal lines, a rare amount of versatility in terms of tone and range of performance, and some cool lyrics such as the second verse, "Faces of a vast and somber dream haunt the past with perfect grief // Listen to the hiss of time outside enslave the paradox with lies." It sounds like Blackwell even has some layered vocal tracks in the chorus (on "Evil Rising!"), which is interesting since most of the tracks have more of a live feel to them (the only other point on the album where I noticed multiple vocal lines is in "Curses of the Priests" where Davis and Blackwell share vocal duties).

Overall, this is a strong release from a band that's a bit of a throwback but ultimately marches to the beat of their own drum. While not a big stylistic departure from their 2011 debut In Witch Order, this one has had more of a lasting impact on me over the last decade and a half or so, being something I've continued to come back to and remember, while with the debut I always have a good time with it but rarely find myself remembering the tracks for very long afterwards. To call them a heavy/doom metal band would be doing them a disservice, I think, since they're clearly rooted in an era from before such distinctions were around, playing a style with both feet stuck in the 70s, and playing something that's clearly just a result of musicians playing the things that feel natural to them. They don't even really feel like a band that was specifically influenced by Sabbath, as such bands generally feel much more one-dimensional - rather, like some of the early doom bands of the late 70s and early 80s (Cirith Ungol and Saint Vitus come to mind), they feel like a band who shared influences with Sabbath and drew similar musical conclusions, allowing them to have a similar sense of musical freedom and experimentation without being beholden to what's expected of a "doom metal" band as such. Perhaps Davis and Blackwell were simply born too late, but in a genre where very few newer releases have really grabbed me, Blacklands is something I think fans of 70s proto-metal would do well to heed.

Rating: 8.4 out of 10