In This Moment – Witch Review

In This Moment’s Beautiful Tragedy is an incredible album. It’s the perfect mix of metal, hard rock, nu-metal, and metalcore, and one I return to time and time again. After a killer debut, the band began to move more into this concept-album-heavy, gothic, witchy, horror direction, which wasn’t really for me; it felt a little forced. The Dream was okay, but didn’t capture me as much as their debut, and anything after this kinda just went over my head. Now, almost 20 years after Beautiful Tragedy, can In This Moment pull me back in with Witch?

For years, In This Moment have put on a spectacular live show, creating a theatrical, ritualistic display of the occult, satanism, and dark gothic horror, so I’m surprised it’s taken this long to name an album Witch. It’s an interesting direction to go in, especially as the band were previously tossed into the category of MySpace metalcore. But with all the pomp and theatrics behind the band’s music now, their latest album has a lot of legwork to do to pull me back in.

Witch kicks off with the track Shame, an unapologetically heavy mix of metalcore, electronic vocal chops, and a haunting sense that this album might not be for me. On their debut, vocalist Maria Brink struck a perfect balance between vocally massive choruses and killer screams. In Witch, her screams are still there, still crushing as before, but the cleans seem a little more held back and a lot less present.

There are a lot more spoken-word, gently sung verses, and effect-heavy chops. There are more electronic elements here, which lend to the gothic metal vibe, but they also make it sound somewhat artificial. It’s a great opener; at times the guitars are nasty, and the balance of haunting vocals swirling in the distance creates an interesting atmosphere. It’s just lacking in the vocal department from Brink.

It says something when your first guest feature almost carries the album. I Want You To Believe features Dayseeker’s Rory Rodriguez, and it’s a firm favourite on the album for me. His voice fits in with the alt-metal darkness of Witch, and I kinda wish he found a spot on a few more tracks.

There are also appearances from Kim Dracula on the track Heretic, who pushes the band into nu-metal territory with Jonathan Davis-style scatty vocals. Then we have a questionable spot from Kat Von D with the band’s staple inclusion of a cover. Witch’s cover track is Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall that is an interesting cover, to be honest, as I never thought I’d ever hear a new wave/goth version of this track…

Instrumentally, the band is solid, but some production choices leave them a little buried behind the booming synth and orchestral atmospheres, which is a little disappointing. There are also a handful of spots where I expect the band to explode into my ears, but instead come by with a mild pop. There’s a lot I think could have been pulled to the front here, and moments that really could have wowed, but it just never happened. There are also some sketchy layering with the drums in certain tracks with acoustic-meets-electronic samples that feel a little mismatched.

I really wanted to like this record, but there’s something about it that I can’t shake off. I adore Beautiful Tragedy, and I keep trying to give In This Moment the benefit of the doubt that maybe their next album will go back to their roots as so many bands have done in the past, but this crusade to seat themselves as a witchy, gothy, alt-metal band just doesn’t hit the spot for me. The album has a handful of good moments, but lacks any real repeatability. Brink seems to have played it safe vocally, opting for chants, intense vocal fry lines, and mellower spoken-word vocals over screams and booming theatrical cleans.

Overall, Witch is a fine alt-metal record that fans of the band’s witchy aesthetic will probably enjoy. It features elements of metal, goth, and industrial which, on paper, I too would dig, but on the whole it fails to impress. There’s nothing inherently bad aside from some questionable production choices; it’s just not overly groundbreaking, either.

Score: 4.5/10

In This Moment released Witch on August 28, 2026 via Better Noise Music