WITCHCRAFT DESTROYS MINDS AND REAPS SOULS
Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls is the debut studio album by the American psychedelic rock band Coven. Released in 1969, it was unusual in that it dealt with overtly occult and satanic themes, and was removed, in the past time, from the market soon after its release due to controversy. However, it remains a classic of its genre, and in some ways set groundbreaking trends for later rock bands. (More from Wikipedia)
Every once in a while, I encounter the above album by Coven, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls (1969) in a rack at a record store; and it scares the crap out of me every time. Three faces and a skull stare implacably from the cover; in fact, the way the lettering is laid out, it is not clear whether it is witchcraft or Coven itself that is doing the destroying. Inside the gate-fold album cover is a nude woman lying on an altar (with the skull strategically placed); I have read that a black mass is held that way. The album ends with a 13-minute cut called “Satanic Mass”. I recently purchased a compilation album that, unbeknownst to me, has a song from this album on it. I cannot seem to find it now, and it is just as well.
The opening track on Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls by Coven is called “Black Sabbath”. Coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally, the opening song on the debut album Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath is also called “Black Sabbath”. The Allmusic article on this album by Steve Huey, which came out the following year, opens with: “Black Sabbath's debut album is the birth of heavy metal as we now know it. Compatriots like Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were already setting new standards for volume and heaviness in the realms of psychedelia, blues-rock, and prog rock. Yet of these metal pioneers, Sabbath are the only one whose sound today remains instantly recognizable as heavy metal, even after decades of evolution in the genre.”
(June 2016)
