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The Witch

from PHANTASMA by VINCAS

/

  • Phantasma LP + Hell Bat Shirt Bundle

    Phantasma LP, Hell Bat Shirt, super evil sticker and button. 2 color printed on Tultex 100% Ring-Spun cotton. Black vinyl only. **Red & Red Splatter is sold out.

    Includes unlimited streaming of PHANTASMA via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Available in Black vinyl only. **Red & Red Splatter is sold out.

    Includes unlimited streaming of PHANTASMA via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days

      $18 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of PHANTASMA via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days

      $10 USD or more 

     

  • Phantasma CD + Hell Bat Shirt Bundle

    Phantasma CD, Hell Bat Shirt, super evil sticker and button. 2 color printed on Tultex 100% Ring-Spun cotton. XL sold out.

    Includes unlimited streaming of PHANTASMA via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Buy Digital album from Learning Curve Records

credits

from PHANTASMA, released May 29, 2020
Chris McNeal: Bass, Vocals, Synthesizer
Scott Kviklys: Guitar, Vocals
Tim Payne: Drums, Drum Programming, Tambourine
Gene Woolfolk: Guitar

Additional Appearances:
Joe McMullen: McMullephone
Mike Albanese: Drum Programming

Engineered by Mike Albanese
Mixed and Mastered by Kyle Spence
All Photos by Jenna Halik
Model on Cover/Insert: Lindsay Leigh

Although the first hints of what was to come from Athens, Georgia’s Vincas were fairly clear even back on 2013’s Blood Bleeds there was no way to prepare for what’s going on with Phantasma. Sure, throw a few darts and you’ll hit the easy go-to targets of The Gun Club, The Birthday Party, Big Black, and whatever they’ve dug up from Australia but none of those touchstones provide any sense of comfort or, even, familiarity.
Phantasma, in the strictest sense, means a creeping figure of supernatural origin; Phantoms, ghosts, apparitions. Vincas transmutes this into something very real and almost tangible. Throughout the record there’s a central, unnamed character that creeps through windows and declares his sins. He demands to be buried upside down, one of a handful of techniques that can keep his evil from the living. He wants your blood. There is no escape, only pause. He tells you explicitly that you can “Hide inside of your safe home/Until the devil finds your door.”
Vincas leads him through every single step of his diabolical missions with incredible heft and unyielding menace. Their embrace of both the coldly electro-mechanical and the passionate physicality of full on guitar-bass-drums deliver his every whim and warning. His agency is no better demonstrated than when he perversely leads a whistling chorus as he thumps through “Let Me In.” Nor is it more smugly celebrated than his howling yelps in “The Witch.”
OK, yeah, it’s a character and this is a rock-n-roll record. Got it. But… put the headphones on. Turn out the lights and put on Phantasma in an empty house. Read the lyrics out loud to someone who’s never heard of any of this. You’ll see. There’s no comfort here. And while those searching for it might seek readily available late-night film clichés to explain all this away there is none as accurate as “the call is coming from inside the house!”
When Joseph Conrad forced his Kurtz to utter “The horror! The horror!” at the end of Heart of Darkness (1899) he meant it as a final self-reproach for the ill thing inside a quickly wilting man who had begun his time in The Congo with the best of intentions. By his end, he had brokered devastation and ushered in his own megalomaniacal madness. Phantasma isn’t kind enough to allow even that level of terrible resolution.
You’ll have to find it on your own. So, don’t sleep.

Gordon Lamb

Athens, GA

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VINCAS Athens, Georgia

Swamp, Psych, Post-Punk, Deathrock from Athens and Atlanta, GA.

Chris McNeal
- Bass, Vocals
Scott Kviklys
- Guitar, Vocals
Gene Woolfolk
- Guitar, Vocals
Tim Payne
- Drums

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