Witchaven - Terrorstorm
Metalhit
Blackened Thrash
10 songs (34:53)
Release year: 2012
Witchaven, Metalhit
Reviewed by Charles
Not a new album, but the CD release of Witchaven’s excellent full-length debut from 2010. Last week, coincidentally, I was similarly enthused by another blackened thrash band whose name also begins with “Witch”, Witchtrap, but Terrorstorm is even better than that band’s last record. It swerves the rock ‘n’ roll jollity in favour of a darker approach, favouring an often laceratingly technical emphasis on screeching riffs and vicious soloing.

Interestingly, Witchaven hover between two very different poles, thematically at least. On one hand, tracks like Black Thrash Assault are spiky-armoured war-and-Satan anthems. But, as that track finishes, we are immediately presented with a sampled voice alerting us to the horrors of forced labour. Later on, we also get a stern warning not to sell babies in exchange for meths. So this is also thrash metal with a righteous social conscience- something I thought had died about twenty years ago, and whose grave had apparently been well and truly pissed upon by the continuing antics of Dave Mustaine.

These juxtapositions aside, the musical content is unswerving. The abovementioned Black Thrash Assault accelerates hair-raisingly from a walking-pace groove into more screaming Teutonic accented thrash- while the band is Californian, the harshness of Henry Montoya’s vocals is more Sodom or Kreator, as is the devilish riffing. Then, as with so many of the songs here, Erik Sneve’s lead guitar forms a gleaming coup de grace. On the latter point, see also the neat twin harmonies on No End in Sight, or the mad, reverb-drenched spasms on Conflagration- just a few examples of the screeching flamboyancy to be found here.

Most importantly, the thrash riffing is sublime. Opener A.D.D. begins with a twiddly pattern somewhat reminiscent of Destruction, and Absolute Profit is equally at home spitting out elaborate, Vektor-like fretwork, or simpler up-tempo blackened ideas. Talking of the latter, towards the end of the record, the geographical pole of influence seems to shift Northwards, at least temporarily. Both Empty Chasm and Unholy Copulation hint fleetingly at Nordic black metal, though they both culminate in an exuberant thrash fashion. Still, this is merely and extra layer of abrasion, on top of what is already an abrasive album, so it feels entirely within character. All in all, well worth hearing.

Killing Songs :
Black Thrash Assault, A.D.D., Absolute Profit, Conflagration
Charles quoted 90 / 100
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There are 3 replies to this review. Last one on Sat May 19, 2012 1:00 am
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