WITCHCRAFT DESTROYS MINDS AND REAPS SOULS

The decision to include a 13 minute spoken word rendition of a "Satanic Mass" (blatantly play- acted and cobbled together from diverse sources, including Anton LaVey's own tedious brand of commercialised Hollywood Satanism and Dennis Wheatley novels) perhaps overshadows any other aspect of Coven's debut album. The fact is that whilst its inclusion was controversial enough at the time to get some temporary publicity for the band, the album's reputation has suffered in retrospect for the inclusion of 13 minutes of embarrassing and often tedious Satanic ritual which goes absolutely nowhere.

It's a crying shame, because if you actually ignore the last track there's some solid psychedelic rock with progressive moments on this album. Thematically more reminiscent of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer Horror movies than anything more sinister, the tame Satanism offered here would look wimpy next to even the (still quite cartoonish) antics of Venom or Mercyful Fate in the 1980s, let alone the extremes the black metal scene would reach in the 1990s, but it does offer a precedent for acts such as Blood Ceremony, Uncle Acid and even Electric Wizard, with Blood Ceremony in particular coming close to the Coven sound in their more psychedelic moments. But at the same time, we can't pretend that the band didn't offer up an album with an unforgivably high proportion of filler in the form of the Mass. Three stars seems fair.