Karyn Crisis’s Gospel of the Witches, “The Ascent”: Great Track, Confused Video

I’m a big fan of Karyn Crisis; I always loved Crisis, and Gospel of the Witches has a really cool, haunting doom/goth vibe to them. I love all the Hecate/Lilith imagery they’re going for, too. It reminds me of my favorite parts of Moonspell and The Atlas Moth.

So I’m definitely a fan of this track, “The Ascent,” which is the closer from this year’s Salem’s Wounds. But sadly, the video, which you can see below, is a little confused. It opens with decent-enough band performance footage, which goes on for over a minute — and suddenly, we’re following Karyn through the woods as she appreciates nature, only to be captured by hooded figures and then saved by what appear to be the ghosts of witches. Suddenly, there’s poorly-digitized fire over the performance footage, and… I don’t know.

It seems like a video with a message, but one that doesn’t reveal itself until too far in. More so, I always find it weird when there’s a dramatic Hammer Horror-esque goon squad descending upon someone who’s dressed in, like, a death metal tank top and jeans. The whole thing feels really incongruous, which is a shame because the song’s so good. I wish they’d just stuck with either the concept video or the performance footage.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Watch “The Ascent” below. Salem’s Wounds is out now on Century Media.