Solo-projects are "special-cases" most of the time. 'Cause even if the initiator controls his skills, there's always slight lacks in the technical conversion, especially on drums or guitars. Different in ELVIRA MADIGAN: Perfectionist Markus H made it his business, to fully pull through music on his own and does not seem to need any other help indeed. Witches is a mature work that does not miss any songwriting- or production-abilities. On 15 songs the listener is abducted into a conceptual-album about witches that bribes with stylistic diversity and great melodies. Dreamy acoustic-passages meet blastbeats and jingling cold, classically inspired keyboard-parts join old-school heavy metal-riffs - and somehow everything fits together perfectly. Simplified I'd describe ELVIRA MADIGAN's music is a combination of Cradle Of Filth's Dusk... and the typical Bal-Sagoth-sound, especially due to occasional Dani-like screaming and atmospheric leads. And so ELVIRA MADIGAN don't reinvent the wheel, but who cares when the music's that good? Only the sometimes quite lumpish sound would have made a different (better?) production preferrable. In any case Witches remains an album you should give a listen to!

Elvira Madigan