Well, it’s been six long years since Witchtrap’s previous strike, 2006’s much-praised No Anesthesia, and now finally this lot of English-grammar-loathers have returned. For those unfamiliar with Witchtrap, they’re a Medellínese (Colombian) black/thrash outfit, leaning further away from the ‘black’ of it all, but rather towards the heavy metal and nonevil-thrash territory
As the press-sheets states, this record is indeed a continuation of where they left off… but really not exclusively in a good way. Ever-since debut album Sorceress Bitch, the band have presented us with a cleaner sound on every record, losing a lot of that essential kinetic energy so crucial to this sort of high velocity thrash. Now South American extreme metal is known for poor sound quality, and I’m not saying it is something that contemporary acts should necessarily cherish, however, when power and intensity get compromised things fall apart. Once you lose the messy sound, you also lose a fair share of the right of being minimalistic, insane and dumb-metal. You actually have to think about song-structures, solos and vocals to keep things interesting, no longer relying on the sheer feeling of KVLT achieved by the masses of reverb surrounding the general sound.
Now I’m not saying that Witchtrap do not, in fact what we have here is certainly their most musically skilled and aware record to date. But is it enough?
After a HMesque acoustic intro, the whole shebang starts off with a completely generic thrash riff of ‘Winds of War’. This is where the production first becomes painfully apparent. The guitars and drums lack the necessary force to justify their simplicity. How did this take six years to write, I find myself thinking? Vocals are a mix of German thrash, Colombian accent and at times some Martin Walkyier (The vocal line in ‘Put To Death’ being pretty much a 1-1 ripoff) – no true complaints for vocalist Burning Axe Ripper, who is also responsible for the guitar work. A shout out has to go out to his tight axemanship, no doubt! Song-writing is also very solid, although a little less chorus-repetition might have done this one good.
As the album plays on, cheesy heavy metal touches start making their mark. The thrash clichés begin to cascade off as the Manowar-lovedom becomes apparent. Such songs as ‘The Queen Of Hell’, ‘Metal’ and ‘Pay In Blood’ have got an absolutely priceless heavy metal touch to them, quickly changing the listeners (my) close-minded perception of the record. Thrash does dominate the proceedings though and we have some classic Testament-rip off axery on ‘Venomous breath’.
All in all I’m being way too harsh in running through this album. I disliked it at first, the production, the often less-than-genius riffage, some monotonous chorus-driven song-writing. But I must say, after listening to this a lot… I can actually say that the charm of the whole thing makes up for it. Which other band has the balls to write lyrics like ‘M -E- T- AL, Once Again! M – E –T- AL’ (yes, they spell out metal!). The instrumental thrash-passages and solos on here are also something to behold, but they are meaningless unless you feel the adolescent metal awesomeness of the record. I’m not saying this is the best thing since five-litre-bottles of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, but fuck yeah would I like to drink some to this or what?! Witchtrap have got the balls to play what they genuinely feel like playing… they may also have hit the right timing as I was just getting bored-as-fuck with the New Wave Of Norwegian Evil Thrash. All hail to this Medellin lot, I hope they catch that crooked old witch soon!
(7.5/10 Miika Virtanen)
Leave a Reply