Sleeping Witch & Saturn Photo credit: Taylor Gearhart
Straight out of Pittsburgh, PA, a 4-piece post-punk outfit has emerged: Sleeping Witch & Saturn. The collective consists of Matt Vituccio, Alex Nelson, Anna Shaw, and Rowdy Kanarek. They have gliding basslines, introspective cosmic lyrics, and a nostalgic, quasi-80s-goth-ish sound that has a serious sting to it. The quartet’s experience of marginalization shines through powerfully in their art, and their newest single “Mother’s Day” is about to make an impact.
First, the bassline opens. Next, guitars get layered up, one at a time like a blueberry crepe cake. Less than 10 seconds in, and we already have a compelling stack of contrasting yet complementary flavors. The offbeat rhythm guitar quickly tinges the song with bittersweet ’60s flavors, whereas the lead vocalist’s deep voice reminds us again of the decade of decadence.
Early on, we have been painted an image of a fatal person. Someone who has got a toxic gravity, this cutting, razor-sharp edge. The romantic image and melodic sonic landscape that describes her is mocking. It’s as if all of the parts of a love song have been inverted, flipped inside out, and remade to tell a heart-rending tale of lived experience. Somehow inside it all, there’s this sense of familiarity. A second set of images is conjured: A home that isn’t homey, a deep, crawling dread, a group rigid at a kitchen table, fearful of dropping a fork…
A descending bassline segues into an instrumental section with quaint shaker, melodic clean lead lines. From the music alone, we get the distinct sense that this person is someone with whom the main character has a deep history, and not all of it is pretty. It’s familiar, pestilential, pathogenic…Then, without dropping a beat, we dissolve right back to the grooving offbeat hits and soulful licks of solo guitar.
This person is selfish, and their roots have grown into everything (like a poison garden, you can see and feel the alkaloids of nightshades, datura…)
As we near the end of the sonic experience, a tremendous stack of vocal harmonies comes back into the chorus, which is thicker than before. The story progresses one inch further, and they finally realize it: She is breaking them.
The decadent vocals continue to weave in and out, and then it all crescendos into this wildfire solo… “Mother’s Day” never quite settles, a testament to the scars hardships leave on a soul. But somehow, in the end, there is this touch of power we gain in the realization of her breaking them. In realizing the pain, one can begin to take back what belongs to them.
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