Witchery - Witchburner

Released as a stop-gap between Witchery's first and second full-length albums, 1999's Witchburner E.P. finds the Swedish demonic thrashers blowing off a little steam with a set of favored cover tunes. Numbering four in total, they offer unsurprising but righteously frenetic takes on Accept's "Fast as a Shark," W.a.s.p.'s "I Wanna Be Somebody," Judas Priest's "Riding on the Wind," and Black Sabbath's "Neon Knights." Three original compositions of surprisingly high caliber (not your typical album outtake fodder, to be sure), round out the proceedings in fine style: both "The Howling" and "The Executioner" are short, fast, and sweet, while the slightly more varied title track comes laced with additional, apropos cries of anguish from its female victims. Read More