VA - Warfaring Strangers: Darkscorch Canticles

Practice your binder-scrawl penmanship, work on that twelve-sided dice roll, and grab a seat at the roundtable, because Numero Group has reanimated sixteen tracks of '70s occult American hard rock one-hitters for heathen ears only.

"The sixteen bands featured on Warfaring Strangers are a varied lot, the only thing really tying them together being their penchant for Satanism and the fantastical mysticism found in a Frank Frazetta poster. Some of these bands probably deserve to remain in the shadowed obscurity of Hades, but it's still a lot of fun to listen to. North Carolina's Arrogance offer up a slab of heavy blues with 'Black Death,' but the title is the only thing to fear here...Perhaps one of the more interesting tracks comes from Canton, Ohio's Wrath, although it's less for the music as it is the directness of the lyrics and the fact that guitarist Ralph Minocchi’s wife had to deliver them due to drummer-vocalist Rick Page suffering from laryngitis. It's the stories behind the songs—which are illustrated in the album's liner notes—that make this batch of misfits all the more likable. Most of the bands on Warfaring Strangers lasted barely a year. Hell, the noteworthy black hard-rock band Hellstorm lasted only one show. At the core of it all is the youthful unrest of small-town life and the liberating power—even if it's fleeting—of rock and roll. That's as timeless as it gets." - Paste