Album Review: Ryan Cassata - 'The Witches Made Me Do It'


Check out Ryan Cassata’s devilishly good folk rock concept album, ‘The Witches Made Me Do It’.

It’s been a while since the intro to a song has hooked me in as quickly as Ryan Cassata’s ‘The Witches Made Me Do It’, which shows off how deeply affecting minimalist production can be. Cassata reels his listener in by opening with an affecting and dramatic piano melody, which seeps emotion. Cassata’s grungy, raw vocal comes in with a harshness and determination, dark, and effortlessly cool as he deviates between lazy conversational lyrical delivery and a rap-leaning neurosis.

There’s a bizarre beauty to the track which sees it throbbing with dark yet fluid bass and captivating strings, growing into a cinematic and suspenseful beast of a song that finds enlightenment as Cassata explains,

“The song is about spiritual healing, falling in love, addiction, and witches...not the type with the pointy hats but the type that are spiritual healers and into astrology”.

‘The Witches Made Me Do It’ is one of eight tracks that features on Cassata’s new concept album. It sits besides other stand out tracks such as ‘Catcher in the Rye, a powerful and deeply emotive string-laden, and guitar driven song that shows a wonderfully vulnerable contrast to the album’s title track, seeing Cassata poignantly explore the themes of anti-LGBTQ bullying and hate crime.

‘The Witches Made Me Do It LP, is an intelligently crafted and thoughtful, multi-faceted album which humbly asks its listener to open their eyes to what kind of world they want live in, and to consider the impact of their own actions. A belter of an LP for sure.

Words of Karla Harris