Talk:Occult rock

WP:NEO
I'm not wanting to get into an edit-war here, but clearly a couple of things need addressing. Firstly, regarding WP:RS; webzines fail this outright unless their content has been published elsewhere by an otherwise reliable third-part source (generally in print). As far as I can tell, MetalSucks appears to fail this, although a 2015 consensus appears to feel that many contributors to MetalSucks are in fact published professional journalists elsewhere - this would justify the inclusion of its content. However - in order to include a section in the lede of this article suggesting that "doom rock" and "witch rock" are synonyms for "occult rock" (and are not just neologisms) there would need to be a source stating *explicitly* that these terms are used interchangeably by music journalists. A cursory search easily demonstrates that this is not the case. The second source provided here, from [[Blabbermouth - a source that does in fact pass WP:RS, contains the following opening paragraph: "Have flute, will travel, and Toronto's BLOOD CEREMONY gets a lot of mileage out of the instrument on its self-titled debut album. A fascination with 70s occult rock — or "witch rock" in this case — that pays homage to acts like COVEN, AFFINITY, and BLACK WIDOW drives the vehicle, while the style clearly combines early BLACK SABBATH and JETHRO TULL." Nowhere in these two sentences does it suggest that occult rock and "witch rock" are synonymous, or indeed that anyone regards "witch rock" as a legitimate genre descriptor; the inverted commas in the original source rather give this away. Unless some actual sources discussing these terms as being legitimate synonyms for occult rock, I move that we scrub them from the lede. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 18:06, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree, that sentence that says that occult rock, doom rock, and with rock are the same is syntaxing.  ~SML  •  TP  20:06, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand what you mean, that quote you provided from Blabbermouth clearly states that the band play occult rock and then states that the style is also known as witch rock, and the term has been used by Corvallis Gazette-Times in this article https://www.gazettetimes.com/entertainment/entertainer-calendar-for-sept/article_b7964c4c-bee4-58eb-a259-22a100dcc761.html, Substream Magazine in this article https://substreammagazine.com/2018/08/hex-tour-new-music/ and Patheos in http://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2014/11/witch-rock-a-primer/. Also, this article http://exclaim.ca/music/article/kylesa_blood_ceremony_white_hills-lees_palace_toronto_on_june_11 by Exclaim! uses the terms interchagably by referring to the band as a witch rock band, and then calling them occult rockers. Issan Sumisu (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a blatant violation of WP:NEO. Firstly, the source does not claim that 'occult rock' is a synonym for 'witch rock', hence the lede is just flat wrong. Secondly, the source provided implies that witch rock could be a sub-set of 'occult rock', but given that it is one source, with no detail whatsoever about it as a significant sub-sub genre, it's trivial mention, so doesn't even merit mentioning per WP:N. If you can find a bunch of other reliable sources discussing this supposed sub-sub genre, you should feel free to include, but if you can't if lacks the notability to listed here. Note that you actually have to provide a source explicitly stating that these two terms are synonyms, not relying on WP:SYNTH, i.e. your own reading of what articles mean. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 06:43, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It definitely isn't NEO, its seems fairly common:    . Often used with reference to or interchangeably with occult rock:   . And it can't be SYNTH as it isn't a conclusion reached that isn't explicitly stated, as both  and  use the term as if it's a subgenre of occult rock, fairly explicitly. How would you, personally, say this should be tackled as it is definitely a notable, well-cited term in reference to occult rock, however there doesn't seem to be enough coverage describing the ins-and-outs of "witch rock" to constitute a sub-section and trying to describe it because of that would be WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH. Issan Sumisu (talk) 19:41, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Occult rock is not the same as witch rock and doom rock
As there was almost an edit war between me and one other user on the List of occult rock bands, and as he cited this article as the source that doom, witch and occult rock are the same. Pretty much all sources I have found, including Patheos article cited above, use "witch rock" to describe, citing Patheos, "Occult-laced low-fi hard rock with female vocals and psychedelic influences". So, it seems to me that "witch rock" is a subgenre of occult rock and not exactly a synonym. A minor complaint, but it still needs to be corrected, IMHO :)

As for the "doom rock" being used as a synonym for "occult rock", I see much bigger problems. Most of the mentions of the two "genres" being the same is from the sites simply copying this Wikipedia article. As somebody who is into hard rock music for about decade an a half, I can say doom rock (as well as "downer rock"), as oposed to doom metal, was never widely used as a genre descriptor, but when it was used to describe late-60s/early-70s heavy psych/blues/hard rock bands, usually having darker sound than other bands of the era, but not quite achieving heaviness of bands such as Black Sabbath or later doom metal bands (bands like Bloodrock, Icecross, Zior/Monument etc.). Since the (pseudo-)"70s hard rock" revival (you know, a lot of stoner rock/metal and modernized heavy psych actually sounding pretty modern, with some notable exceptions like Vidunder aside), I see the term used slightly more often, and many times in relationship with bands that use occult thematics in lyrics. However, I struggled to find any mention that doom rock and occult rock are excactly synonyms. The closest I could found is that both terms are used for the same band, but that doesn't mean nothing, as I can find terms doom, stoner and sludge used for the same band much more often and those are certainly not the same thing. StjepanHR (talk) 18:16, 2 November 2020 (UTC)


 * The two sources currently cited for the phrases being synonyms are and, pretty directly cited them as synonyms. Also, while they don't say it directly enough to be cited as sources,    seem to all use "occult rock" and "doom rock" interchangeable throughout their texts, and maybe  for "witch rock", but that's definitely more dubious. It does seem like it'd be possible to put together enough references to argue that witch rock is derived from occult rock but to find any citation to directly refer to it as a sub-genre seems quite hard. I feel like the way you're describing doom rock is pretty much the same way sources describe the sound of occult rock too. Like,  says "We’re talking ’60s psychedelia, ’70s retro fuzz and Sabbath-style riffage" and  says it's "bands with a proto-70s [metal, I assume] sound and occult themes" Issan Sumisu (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the polite reply, I appreciate that :) Firstly, I really don't think "witch rock" is much of an issue, but maybe a sentence like "occult rock bands with female vocalists are ofter refered to as "witch rock"", or something like that. I guess your reference #1 (Blabbermouth review) is to show that occult and witch rock are synonyms. I think it actually supports witch rock being a subgenre: "A fascination with 70s occult rock — or "witch rock" in this case" (it says "witch rock IN THIS CASE", like all witch rock is occult rock, but not all occult rock is witch rock).

As for the references mentioning occult and doom rock as the same, my reply would be the following:
 * #2 (metalsucks) - "I suppose “occult rock” is a handy enough term for it, anyway; it’s easier than stringing together “70’s-influenced psychedelic doom rock” to describe the aural spells these wicked women weave" - this is the closest to the use of the sources as synonyms, but even it makes occult rock a specific, "70’s-influenced psychedelic", type of doom rock and not doom rock in general
 * as you have said, other sources "don't say it directly enough to be cited as sources"
 * Kerrang article also supports my point of view, as they have described three of the bands as "doom" (meaning the term is not interchangable) and "Lucifer I" album as "a wonderful mix of occult doom with just a touch of NWOBHM oomph". If the two were the same, "occult doom" would be redundant StjepanHR (talk) 19:55, 2 November 2020 (UTC)