Sunday, October 9, 2016

Witchery : "In His Infernal Majesty Service"







They have come back in a powerful way after the 2010 "Witchkrieg". The album features features new vocalist Angus Norder. The rest of the band features members of the Haunted , Grave, Seance, and Arch Enemy, There is more of a punk touch to the second song. "Netherworld Emperor" returns to to kind of deathly thrash that colored the opener, though it might not be quite as tightly coiled of an attack. There is a catchier Slayer like feel to "Nosferatu". This is fine with me since Slayer has not sounded like Slayer in a decade.

It's not until "the Burning of Salem' that feel feels like the band is playing at a speed too fast for the song. Considering the brand of death metal these guys are coming at you with that means they used some restraint up until this point. One of this album's strengths is the production. The guitars sound mean as fuck, like they could slice your neck right off your god damn shoulders. The additional dynamics of "Gilded Fang" help it to stand out of the blurred blitz of the other songs, even if such lapses in intensity are only momentary. There is a more Motorhead like rock punch to the opening of "Empty Tombs". This one is fast and feral, but doesn't hold my attention as well until it gets to the Slayer like breakdown. There is more punch to the thrashy groove of "In Warm Blood" . It's almost impossible to no nod your head to this one.

There is a more traditional  thrash metal riff to "Escape From Dunwich Valley". I always preach about our rule here "Cool Riffs alone do not make a good song" these guys get it and show you how you can have the best of both worlds more often than not. When they do not adhere to this rule the result is something more in lines with "Feed the Gun" and the riff just is too straight forward and not cool enough to apply in the first place. You can finally here the bass on "Oathbreaker". Things song races along and meets up with a slightly more melodic part. There is a fucking awesome tempo change in riff to "Eye For an Eye". The vocals even switch up here, which is what the album needed, the end result is something that sounds like it could have come from Entombed's "Wolverine Blues" album. They close the album with "Cloak and Dagger" which is  too straight forward that made me wonder what happened to the burst of creativity on the previous song. Sure there is a cool gallop at the end, but it's too little too late. I'll go ahead and around this one up to a 9 not sure how many listens I would get around to as far as this album as whole goes, but for death metal it's pretty awesome.This album comes out November 25th,




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