Wicca Phase Springs Eternal

It’s impossible to talk about Wicca Phase Springs Eternal without talking about transformation. For over a decade the singer, songwriter and producer Adam Andrzejewski has used the moniker as a wide creative umbrella, under which he’s made a vast body of work that’s as consistently compelling as it is constantly changing. This deft ability to blend sounds and styles has become his calling card, but no matter the genre signifiers–from rap beats, to new wave synths, to goth atmospherics–the beating heart of WPSE is Andrzejewski’s singular voice and esoteric-yet-emotional lyricism. Those key elements have centered the project through musical explorations, and now on his latest full-length, Mossy Oak Shadow, Andrzejewski really puts them to the test. Shedding thumping 808s and intricate production in favor of a no-frills band and sparse live recording, the album is a stirring collection of hazy folk rock songs that prove Wicca Phase Springs Eternal can truly be anything. “I always kind of thought that as long as I have the Wicca Phase Springs Eternal name that I can do whatever I want,” Andrzejewski explains. “The name provides a framework for the lyrics and aesthetics of the project–my songwriting with a mystical overlay to it–and as long as I can make something work within that, then the genre doesn’t totally matter.” That daring creative mentality is what steered Andrzejewski when he first started the WPSE project, through his work as a co-founder of the influential GothBoiClique collective, or as member of Thraxxhouse and Misery Club, and even with his punk side project, Pay For Pain. Still, few could have guessed that the new proper Wicca Phase Springs Eternal release would be a set of country-leaning folk songs performed without a wink in sight. As with all things Wicca Phase, Mossy Oak Shadow finds Andrzejewski fully committed. “There’s always been acoustic songs on my records but usually they’re in the context of a beat-based Wicca Phase album. I think the idea here was to just kind of start fresh and go hard in this other direction,” he says. “The temptation is to call it a country record, I don't really think it’s that–but there’s acoustic guitar and slide guitar, and I think my interests and themes do have elements of country in sort of an archetypical way.” It’s certainly not hard to imagine the narrators of any number of WSPE songs as stoic loners walking into a troubled town with a guitar slung over their shoulder, and in many ways Mossy Oak Shadow feels like it’s simply leaning harder into parts of Andrzejewski’s musical DNA that have always been there. “I’ve loved Bob Dylan since I was ten years old,” he says. “I had an uncle who gave me his entire catalog on data discs and I just fell in love. I even love how he’s always reinterpreting his work to this day and I try to keep that in mind–especially for this album. That spirit, that freedom, was very influential to me with writing this record. I felt like I didn't have to think about too many specifics outside of writing lyrics and chords and whatever comes out comes out, genre be damned.” Andrzejewski teamed with producer/engineer Ben Greenberg (Depeche Mode, Drab Majesty, Show Me The Body) and brought the songs to the studio in a purposely looser form, intentionally leaving space for a live band to flesh the songs out. That band turned out to be McIlwee singing and playing guitar, Greenberg on bass, and session players Ryan Jewell and David Moore on drums and keys. “Dave and Ryan were guys Ben had worked with, but I’d never met them,” Andrzejewski says. “When we got there, I had lyrics, chords, and demos–we’d listen to the demo once, Ben would make some suggestions, and then we’d try it. I would literally ask ‘do I need to teach these guys the songs...’ and Ben would say ‘no they’d figure it out’–and they did! There was no discussion, they just got it. They were so perfect, Ben included, that it was no different than just singing over a beat or something I'd created.” The band setup alone would have been a significantly different approach for a Wicca Phase Springs Eternal recording, but tracking the vast majority of the album live added another wrinkle. “I didn’t know we were going to be recording live until I got there,” Andrzejewski says. “At first I thought we were just practicing and didn't even know we were doing takes. I had no idea and it was probably best that I didn't.” The result is an album that lives and breathes, with every unvarnished performance overflowing with feeling and pathos. Opener “Rough Roads” is nothing but Andrzejewski’s lone voice and guitar, a dusty welcome into the latest dimension that Wicca Phase Springs Eternal has conjured. It’s followed by “Horseback” and “Enchantment,” songs that you can instantly imagine being performed in a smoky Western saloon or on stage at The Roadhouse in an episode of Twin Peaks. Mossy Oak Shadow might seem like a drastic pivot for the Wicca Phase Springs Eternal fans who got on board through his beat-driven modern classic albums, like 2016’s Secret Boy or 2018’s Suffer On–but it shouldn’t come as a total surprise. WPSE releases have always dabbled in stripped-down acoustic songs, and even further back there’s Andrzejewski’s earlier work as a member of emo/indie stalwarts Tigers Jaw. When he left that band to focus on Wicca Phase in 2013, he was met with skepticism from listeners who were hesitant to embrace his new persona and experimental trap sound. Ironically now Andrzejewski has so thoroughly established Wicca Phase Springs Eternal that he’s once again challenging his fans with a stark sonic shift–but this time by returning to the guitar-oriented songwriting he’d set aside. “Dylan, Will Oldman, Richard Thompson–what I like most about those songwriters is that I'm able to trust them,” Andrzejewski explains. “If they do something that’s totally strange I trust that they know what they’re doing because it’s coming from the same person that wrote all these other songs that I love. So even if it might take some time for me to get where they are, I want to try.” And the sheer force of Andrzejewski’s unwavering vision is more than enough to steady listeners and win them over with the same thing he’s always provided: phenomenal songwriting. Whether it’s with the lush majesty of songs like “Magic Moment,” or the stirring spareness of Ethel Cain duet “Meet Me Anywhere,” Mossy Oak Shadow highlights Andrzejewski’s ability to blend deeply human longing with otherworldly splendor–and the moody gothic country atmosphere only amplifies this enticing dichotomy. “Settler’s Bend” and “I Get It” are powered by shuffling drums, timeless chord changes, and Andrzejewski’s warm croon, but they’re cast with WPSE’s intangible spell that turns the mundane into the magical. The album comes to a close with “I Was A Runner Once,” a haunting and nostalgic track that brings a dark romance to long lost moments. It’s beautiful and discomfiting all at once, somehow sounding at once uncharted territory for Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and totally of a piece with McIlwee’s larger songwriting project. It’s the sound of achieving the artistic freedom that he found so inspiring in the work of his formative songwriting heroes. “That song kind of wrote itself,” he says, “It ends the album on an ominous note but it means I can do anything I want next.”