Is “darkness” taken seriously anymore, or has it just become a schtick that gets your band labeled “witch house”?

Canada’s Blood Ceremony does reference witches, but they’re not in a house–they’re not in the ghetto either.

The witches on the band’s latest album, Living With the Ancients, would probably be more comfortable in an underground lair, getting ready to sacrifice some poor soul who had wandered in looking for a phone because he car broke down or something.

On “the Great God Pan,” the heavy guitar riffs call back to a time when Black Sabbath and Arthur Brown were some of music’s darkest badasses. A couple more things that make Blood Ceremony’s cauldron stand out are, of course, that organ and Alia O’Brien’s vocals. Her voice was putting me off a little at first, but my reservations are slowly starting to melt away.

Living With the Ancients is out now via Rise Above.