Black Widow 6.3

This fine double CD collection offers the curious a cost effective but comprehensive overview of the career of this respected band. After a brief introduction through a couple of tracks by the band under their former guise Pesky Gee!, we find a good selection of tracks from the band's three album released between 1970 and 1972.

Black Widow were a rock band that formed in Leicester, England in September 1969. The band were mostly known for its early use of satanic and occult imagery in their music and stage act. The band were often compared with the better-known Heavy metal band Black Sabbath, but the bands were only superficially similar.Controversy aside, Sacrifice reached No. 32 on the UK Albums Chart. The band performed at the Whitsun Festival at Plumpton, UK, and at The Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.By 1971, the band had moved away from its darker occult imagery in an effort to gain a wider audience, which was unsuccessful. Having replaced Bond and Box with Geoff Griffith and Romeo Challenger, Black Widow released the self-titled Black Widow album in 1971 and Black Widow III in 1972 (by which time Gannon had left, replaced by John Culley) to general disinterest before being dropped by CBS Records. The band recorded an album, Black Widow IV, later in 1972 without a recording contract.

Catherine is a black widow. "She mates and then she kills". Black Widow is the story of a lady (Catherine) who marries lonely millionaires

In a society defined by our greatest and worst moments, out of chaos comes Letters from a Black Widow – a definitive statement of perseverance and liberation from Grammy-winning singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Judith Hill. The album’s 12 songs masterfully reveal themes she’d explored only in therapy and nightmares. Stories of resistance, hard-won clarity and redemption are delivered through an unshakable soul, funk and blues foundation that resonates with a defiant, beautiful power.

Hats off to Candlelight for giving these two British psychos some much-needed exposure. Music this extreme and dare we say “genuine” deserves a broader audience, as it has the ability to fracture those pesky sub-genre segments that us journalistic types like to run into the ground. And there’s no appearances to the contrary, Anaal Nathrakh are the extreme metal band to watch. With In the Constellation of the Black Widow, they merely reinforce that notion.