### Witchery: Dead, hot and ready

#### 16/08/12 || Sokaris

Fucken Witchery! The absolute, undisputed kings of sort of decent, extremified revisited thrash Swedish side-projectery that no one really loves and pretty much everyone only kind of likes.

Okay, so I don’t think anyone’s going to stand and declare Witchery as gods or ever propose an inclusion into the Class6(66) section but their early work had some venom in it and is worth a look. Witchery is basically a dumping ground for Patrick Jensen’s riffs that were too old-school sounding for his full-time gig in The Haunted. I actually recall reading an interview with PJ where he said something about Witchery being The Haunted’s material that was “too Mercyful Fate.” Speaking of Fate, Sharlee D’Angelo is featured on bass. You may remember him from his work on the majority of the post-reunion Mercyful material, for being a founding and current member of Arch Enemy, his short stints with King Diamond and Dismember or for being a fucking giant. Rounding out the line-up are Toxine on vocals, Richard Corpse on lead guitar and Mique on drums. These three along with Jensen formed 80% of Satanic Slaughter’s line-up on the first two albums so whether you see Witchery as a continuation of that band or a side project is up to you. A couple of those guys have also been involved with another Jensen band, Seance (whose ”Saltrubbed eyes” was an early addition to the aforementioned Class6(66) section), though not necessarily at the same time. If you connect the dots enough basically everyone was in everyone’s band and all this fact-checking is giving me a headache.

Anyway, I’ve probably dedicated too much time to Witchery’s lineage but its honestly more interesting than their music. Not that they’re a bad band by any means, it’s just a collection of decent songs featuring some professional musicians blowing off some steam. I suppose something like Bloodbath started out the same way, but Bloodbath is an odd case of a band accidentally being completely badass in their onset. Anyway, the current phase of throwback thrash wasn’t the first case of retro-80’s worship, though the European wave was a little less on the nose and somewhat connected to melodeath. Terror 2000 and Raise Hell were similar cases of a Gothenburgian hail to palm-muting the fuck out of that E-string. Really though, Swordmaster (the band that somehow morphed into Deathstars) were a million times better at it than their higher profile peers. That band had the attitude and were at the peak around the release of this album.

Well, shit, I keep talking about other bands here. That kind of illustrates my point. Witchery’s stuff is just fine. And “fine” isn’t a good adjective for extreme metal. There are some decent thrashy riffs, well-performed blackish howls, moderately catchy choruses, good drum arrangements and surprisingly present bass. The short run time of the album just ran out as I typed this paragraph and if a gun was put to my head demanding me to hum one of the songs I’d be dead. Hookiness and immediacy aren’t necessary with every band. I mean, you’re not going to memorize a Deathspell Omega song after the first listen, unless you’re some kind of black metal Rain Man…

…but if you’re doing tongue-in-cheek, sort of lovingly-poking-fun-at metal-while-trying-to-have-a-good-time-music then you better carry more charisma than this.

Witchery is an alright band but I’d be pretty pissed off if I’d ever paid full price for something of theirs. Unfortunately the band only became dulled with time and the only material worth revisiting is out of print. Even without a huge demand for their albums the prices that the albums up to “Dead, hot and ready” aren’t worth it and you’re not committing any kind of crime by passing them up. If you spot an older Witchery album for cheap though, give it a go.

- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Necropolis Records
- Website: Witchery MySpace
- Band
- Toxine: vocals
- Patrick Jensen: guitars
- Richard Corpse: guitars
- Sharlee D’Angelo: bass
- Mique: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Demonication
- 02. A paler shade of death
- 03. The guillotine
- 04. Resurrection
- 05. Full moon
- 06. The devil and the damage done
- 07. Dead, hot and ready
- 08. The devil’s triangle
- 09. Call of the coven
- 10. On a black horse thru hell