Widow’s Peak // Claustrophobe // Album Review

2018 saw Widow’s Peak emerge from Calgary, Canada initially as a Slam-infused Tech Death band before adjusting and now bringing their brand of Tech Death to the world. Having taken their time to plot their path the five-piece band are here with their debut full-length release.

Drawing on the skills of Colin Martson (Gorguts, Atheist, Artificial Brain and more) to mix and master the album – the band’s own lead guitarist Chris McCrimmon has created the album’s artwork and gives you an insight into where there this album comes from.

As you press play on the album, you are immediately drawn into an atmospheric introduction piece called ‘Blood On The Breath’ before the album explodes Into complex Tech Death that immediately tears your face off.

Every part of the fretboard it used by all guitars as the drums hold it all together with sporadic rhythms and then a Death metal-style vocal growling all over the top of everything.

The result is catastrophic yet precise and simply stunning.

As the 11 track album continues through its 43 minutes, the top quality take on complex structures that make the sound so unique will mas your brain. The fact that the Technical aspects hold their own alongside the brutality of the music is something rare to experience – the overall tone of the music is heavy as fuck as it is so the Tech side enhances everything to a new level and doesn’t get lost in the weight of the music.

The attention to every detail is something wonderful to experience and is a credit to the people who have written and perform it. The blend of atmosphere with the other aspects already mentioned is not something that you get to hear often and Claustrophobe is one of the best Tech death albums that you are likely to hear and is the up there with the best that you will have heard.

When you consider that this is a debut full length you end up in the arena of wondering where this slots in with the best first Tech Death albums and it must be right up there. You just have to hope that this gets the exposure that it deserves, and fans of the genre get to experience Widow’s Peak as this is something special and it would be an injustice for it not reach the crowd that will love it.

Claustrophobe will be released Friday 7^th July 2023 independently.

Ed Ford

Tracklist