Distilling Magic: British rock group Wytch dazzle with self-titled debut
The four-piece’s first album, Wytch, promises romantic poetry and Nicks-y mystique set to ‘70s rock anthems.
★★★★½
Photo: Wytch
For Jordan Watts and the rest of British South coast 70s-inspired glam band Wytch, this has been a long time coming. Silent Ruin — the group’s debut single — dropped in December 2024, with the rest of what would ultimately make up the band’s self-titled LP, Wytch, seeing delays and staggered releases. Nonetheless, reception has been positive and, at last, we enter full moon fever for witches, sorcerers and moonlit dancers everywhere.
From the get-go, Wytch is crystal clear in what it aims to achieve; the group’s biggest musical inspirations are Fleetwood Mac, Heart and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and it shows. The album’s opening track, I Won’t Forget, shows the influence of guitarists like Petty and Mike Campbell — it’s pure, classic Heartbreakers, tuned up just a little for a rock-starved 2025 audience.
Drive cruises along the same, Heartbreakers-esque affair, with shades of a pre-Fleetwood Mac Buckingham Nicks thrown in (fitting, given the latter’s long-awaited reissue drops on the same date). It’s pure Californian, open-top rock ‘n’ roll, with a little Beach Boys and Creedence Clearwater Revival thrown in to boot.
Believe In Magic bears a charming likeness to Christine McVie’s Nights in Estoril from Fleetwood Mac’s 1995 Time album, packed with full-moon lustre and fae-like grace. It’s one of the standouts on here, while Just Hold Me rounds out the ‘70s rock suite ballad obligation. It’s not the strongest number on the album, but it features some of the most poetic imagery: “A thousand hands have reached for mine / None could feel the same”.
The Archer and Suncatcher — some of the singles pre-dating the full album — sound as mystifying now as they did several months ago. The former, a Loreena McKennitt-style folk track full of lyres and whimsy, allows Wytch to really show the breadth of their musical skills, with Suncatcher serving as the equally haunting companion piece to Stevie Nicks’ Gold Dust Woman.
There’s an interesting a-side from the rest of the album in Fools, written and sung by guitarist/keyboardist Chris Davies. It’s early Speedwagon meets John Denver, in one of the more sing-along-worthy offerings here. Silent Ruin, the group’s first-ever release, is a sparkling gem whose shine refuses to fade with time. Sky Blue Eyes, another great rocker, echoes songwriter Watts’ love for flowery, Cupidian verse.
Wytch closes with It’s Not Love — and it’s not a final, soul-crushing lament for the ages, nor a face-melting, blistering seven-minute guitar solo. It plays the best of both, a sort of pint-sized Stairway to Heaven that wanders from dreamy Shakespearean reverie to swaggering, Led Zep IV powerhouse.
Upon first listen, there will be the inevitable comparisons between Wytch’s material and Fleetwood Mac, in much the same way Greta Van Fleet was deemed a Zep knock-off throughout their earlier years. Now, Van Fleet are celebrated as one of the finest rock acts of the 21st century, giving early glam and blues rock the shot to the heart it so desperately needed.
In time, perhaps Wytch will do the same for that 1970s Californian rock sound. The influences are resounding — you’d know Wytch grew up listening to the greats in a heartbeat. But it’s undeniable that they capture a sound previously kept to the tattered record sleeves of long-haired octogenarians. Wytch have proven themselves capable musicians and poetic songwriters in their own right; who on their first record could muster a polished outtake from Tom Petty’s Hard Promises? Wytch are here to rock, to roll, to provide the Beltane with a bit of how’s your father — matching sequins with leather and ushering in a never-ending, Bacchinalian summer.
Wytch is out September 19th.