Dead Heroes – Witch Doctor (2025)
Veteran musicians Harry Young (Solcura) and Zoot Hill Valler (DELTORERS), together as Dead Heroes, aren’t interested in a perfect image. On their first offering as a duo, ‘Witch Doctor’, they want you to know that they don’t have it all together. And from that space, they create. Young begins immediately in a weary, contemptuous delivery, over a deep-hitting drum beat and urgent rhythm. The chords are dreary, and together with Young, who sounds spent, singing, “Drugs to keep me underneath/ Drowning me right in their grief”, ‘Witch Doctor’ is a brooding piece.
When the hook arrives, the rhythm continues, and melancholic guitar melodies surface like intrusive memories. Along with the melodies, an additional chorus of “hoos” and prickly strings creates another atmosphere of horror while accentuating Young’s helplessness. These additions add a layer, morphing the song into a warning from a gloomy jam. When Young sings, sounding like a scary story orator, “My witch doctor says he knows everything/ But what do I know/ They left me for dead, and now I’m alone”, these chilling additions give the single its dread-filled aura.
When the song suddenly drops into powerful chords, booming drums and Young unleashing his pain, combined with that steady rhythm, the song opens up. With the lines, “Over and over, never again, oh no/ Sense is leaving me without a hope/ Gotta find another home”, ‘Witch Doctor’s warning finds a tangible example as it barrels down into Young’s inner life. The simplicity of the music is a perfect match.
Intimacy is crucial. The sorrow in Young’s images also gives the song its eeriness. Some lyrics fall flat and lose their shock, mostly when Young preaches. Intimacy would be optimal in the hook as well. Conjuring a stereotype historically used to demean, to show the creepiness of being lost, felt uninspired. The band’s power comes from conveying, concretely, the disturbing experience of being spiritually directionless and alienated. To live in that state, in a world where people are becoming increasingly self-obsessed, for Dead Heroes, seems to be the future and a scary one. At the end of the song, there exists a key to empowerment: staying alive.
Find out more about Dead Heroes on their Instagram and Spotify.
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