Witch Post’s debut, Beast, is a masterclass in controlled chaos.
This is the sound of two artists—Alaska Reid from Montana and Dylan Fraser from Scotland—colliding with ‘a nearly telepathic sense of taste’. Since their first single “Chill Out” dropped in early 2025, they’ve proven they know exactly what they want to say; the trick was figuring out how loud to say it.
“We want to bring back band music, make it less boring and one-dimensional,” as they said in an interview earlier this year. Behind that is the story of two artists from opposite sides of the world. They are drawn together by shared restlessness and a nearly telepathic sense of taste.
The Two Halves of the Equation
Witch Post is the creative union of Alaska Reid and Dylan Fraser, two singer-songwriters. Their musical paths were heading in very different directions before colliding. Reid carved her reputation on the American indie circuit with her own brand of guitar-driven confessionals. Her solo work mixed rural imagery with urban disillusionment, often balancing intimacy and distortion in equal measure.
Fraser, by contrast, was raised both as a producer and a writer. He has a flair for digital textures and modern pop experimentation.
Their collaboration began almost by accident. Mutual admiration online (Instagram) led to a meeting in London. The session that followed felt too natural to leave unfinished. By the end of it, they had the skeleton of a song. More importantly, they had a sense that something bigger was taking shape.
The Meaning of the Name
The name “Witch Post” comes from a piece of folk history. This was a carved wooden post placed outside old English and Scottish houses to ward off witches. Reid stumbled across the phrase and found it irresistible — both ominous and oddly protective. It fit the pair’s sound perfectly: a mix of superstition and sanctuary, danger and defense.
Shared Vision, Different Angles
In conversation, Reid and Fraser discuss their desire to revive the essence of a band. They envision a real, collaborative unit. This is amid a time when pop and indie music have become increasingly solitary. Both had spent years making music alone. They were craving the push and pull that only another mind can provide. Witch Post is their experiment in creative friction.
Reid’s songwriting imparts emotional depth with simple lines that linger after the song ends. Fraser’s production adds mystery. It shapes the guitars to shimmer like static. This creates a warm yet uncanny backdrop for Reid’s voice. The result is a sound that nods to ’90s alt-rock. It captures the loud-quiet dynamics of bands like The Breeders, Pixies, or Sonic Youth. However, it doesn’t mimic it.
Instead, Witch Post sounds like they’re communicating through the ghosts of that era. They translate its spirit into something intimate… modern.
Aesthetic and Ethos
What makes Witch Post distinctive isn’t just how they sound, but how they present that sound. Their imagery is tactile and cinematic: ash, smoke, glass, twilight. Their songs often seem to unfold in private spaces — bedrooms, train compartments, small stages lit by a single lamp.
There’s a sense of secrecy in everything they do. It’s as if the listener has stumbled into a conversation not meant to be overheard. Beast feels like eavesdropping on an internal dialogue, a record built from fragments of thought and sensation.
From the very opener, “Chill Out” begins with tension rather than grandeur. The drums are locked in a slow march. The guitars alternately snake and scream. Reid’s delivery is understated, conversational, even weary, yet her phrasing cuts through the mix like a wire. She sings “And once again. My heart broke while you sat there drinking. And just for once. Just for once, I couldn’t give a damn what you’re thinking.”
Around her, the guitars growl and fade – Fraser’s production bristles with static and space. The line is almost throwaway, but it defines the record’s pulse. Beast is about the impossibility of rest, as Fraser responds, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chill out. I don’t wanna be down. I give you everything that you want. Come on, just give it up now?”
Dream Logic
“Dreaming” introduces the band’s signature sleight of hand — songs that seem straightforward but dissolve when you look closer.
“I’ve been dreaming to get you off my mind.” Fraser sings, the line floating above a wash of guitars that seem to melt into each other. It’s the kind of lyric that looks simple until it isn’t. The “dream” here isn’t escape but recursion, a state of permanent almost-becoming.
Fraser’s production lets this ambiguity breathe. He doesn’t just build walls of noise. He builds sound so dense it takes on a physical presence. The sound is held at the edge of overload like stretched silk about to tear. Each frequency seems to flicker between analog warmth and a digital haze. It feels like watching a signal degrade in real-time. This is a perfect metaphor for the duo itself: half organic, half programmed, forever in transition.
The Tension Between Control and Collapse
Throughout Beast, Witch Post sounds like a band negotiating control. “Rust” and “Ragged” both teeter on the edge of implosion, their guitars snarling against tight rhythmic scaffolding.
The lyrics — minimal, fragmented — mirror that instability. “There’s a beauty in the rust. There′s a song in the rust,” Reid states on “Rust”. She’s not glamorizing decay; she’s documenting endurance.
Even when the noise swells, the duo resist grand gestures. There are no big sing-along choruses, no slick climaxes. Instead, they offer texture — layers that reveal themselves over time. Witch Post understands that the most revealing thing a band can do today is not fill the silence.
“The Wolf” closes the first disc as a study in internal confrontation. “Be a wolf, don’t worry, don’t shy away,” Reid intones, and the phrase turns the entire record inward. The predator is a reflection; the beast is the self. The music blooms around the line — cascading guitars, echoing vocals, the sound of recognition rather than fear. It’s one of the most affecting finales of any debut this year: catharsis rendered as acceptance.
The Second Disc: After the Roar
The expanded edition’s second disc, subtitled Dusk, is crucial to the album’s emotional arc. It features two re-imagined tracks that reframe Beast in near-total stillness.
The Dusk recordings portray Beast as a circular work. The loud first disc confronts listeners, while the quiet second disc allows for processing. As a debut, it’s remarkably self-assured. The second disc doesn’t dilute its impact. It amplifies it by contrast. This serves as a reminder that reflection can be as creative as invention.
The “wolf” remains in the quiet, but it’s calm now, observing rather than attacking.
Final Analysis
In both form and feeling, Witch Post’s Beast succeeds by resisting easy categorization. It is not purely nostalgic. However, it nods to alt-rock’s past. It is not entirely modern. Yet, its production gleams with digital clarity. It resides in the space between. This is where the human voice meets the hum of the machine. It’s also where vulnerability meets distortion.
As an artistic statement, Beast suggests Witch Post isn’t interested in quick gratification.
They’re interested in building an atmosphere that lingers — an unease that becomes comfort, a whisper that echoes. The second disc shows that their world extends beyond the initial spark. It’s twilight music for a generation learning to live with its own noise.
Rating: 4.5/5 — a debut of rare cohesion and restraint. It expands not outward but inward. This reveals just how much power can live inside quiet.
Chris Garrod, October 30, 2025
PS, Better news: on October 1, 2025, they moved to Partisan Records. They joined a roster that includes Geese, Blondshell, and PJ Harvey. And to celebrate, they released “Changeling”. An amazing sign of things to come.