HISTORY
Well what do we have here, a thrash-metal band from Sweden? You might think that thrash-metal didn’t have any effect on the Swedish people but it did. We look over every death-metal band that Sweden has plenty of and let us study some Swedish thrash instead. Sweden might be recognizable because of the melodic death-metal bands that Sweden has, but the thrash-metal bands of Sweden don’t get much attention, bands like
Carnal Forge,
Hexenhaus and
Bewitched among others are some example of Sweden’s best thrash bands. This band is called
Witchery, and thrash-metal band which was formed by four ex-members from a band called
Satanic Slaughter. This band became one of Sweden’s best thrash-metal bands, though this band was not pure thrash, this was a combination of black, death and thrash-metal. You can definitely hear that the main sound is thrash-metal while the vocal work is familiar to black and death-metal.
ALBUM INFORMATION
This album is called
’’Red, Hot And Ready’’ and it was released in 1999. This album delivers energetic and aggressive thrash-metal and the vocals are both growls and raspy shrieking. Here you have good musicianship, the riffing and shredding are both catchy and heavy (most of the time). This band has a good bass, you can hear the clear bass lines pretty good and the drum work is intense and heavy. This band has though no particular message in their lyrics, their lyric themes are most of the time based around occult stuff, violence, satanic themes and death based lyrics. This has nothing to do with politics or society and this is definitely not about peace, love and understanding.
THE BAND MEMBERS
Tony Kampner (Toxine) – Vocalist of this band, this is the member who gives the band its evil and creepy black-death atmosphere. He uses both raspy black-metal shrieking and darker death-metal grunting. This is a pretty good vocalist but not one of the best though; I find his vocals a bit annoying but not much. He has a good variety in his vocals but his vocals may bore you a bit, he has though a good vocal style for the genre, torn, not perfect.
Rille (Richard Corpse) /
Patrick Jensen – These guys are responsible for the guitars, and they doing a good job too. Their variety in the guitar work is great; they play most of the times good quality thrash riffs and skilled solos (almost a bit similar to
Metallica soloing). The riffs might though seem a bit simple or old stock, this is nothing highly advanced guitar work but it still catchy and heavy. The rhythm sections are steady and tight, the lead work is also very good and the solos are quite chaotic but still pretty enjoyable. These guys are good on what they are doing but the overall guitar work would’ve needed a little makeover.
Charles Andreason (Sharlee D’Angelo – Bassist, and a good bassist too. Not one of the best but you can hear his bass lines pretty good; if you compare this band to other thrash bands you can hear that this bass is more audible than the others. But this bassist does not deliver any sorts of standout performances unfortunately; you can hear the bass in some intros or filler sections but that’s all. Anyway, you can hear the bass lines and it makes a better and more solid sound together with the guitars.
Micke (Mique) – The heart of a metal band, the drummer. This drummer also does a good job, the variety might seem a bit boring but he can handle the drum sticks very good. The patterns are most of the times quite typical thrash drumming and that will say fast and intense. But the thing is that the patterns are still a bit heavy and they are very catchy.
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS ALBUM
Not a bad album but not a great one either, there were things I thought well about but there was also some bad things I also found in this album. But we begin with my positive thoughts; one thing I thought well about was the energy. Every song had a good amount of energy, none of the songs felt sloppy or sluggish, the riffing and shredding was energetic alongside the intensive thrash drums. The songs maybe wasn’t so catchy but with this energy they got catchy any how. A second thing I thought was good was the mix between the different genres, you can definitely hear that this is thrash, but with these vocals the music got more interesting and maybe a bit unique. Thrashing madness alongside blackened evil made a pretty cool concoction. Well I guess we can look at one better thing, and it would’ve been the guitar work. I still think that the guitars has a ‘’single-tracked’’ direction but there was some cool riffing in this album. Songs with some of the best or more varied guitar work would be songs like
Call Of The Coven,
Guillotine and
The Devil’s Triangle. Now we move on to my negative thoughts, one thing I didn’t like so much was the vocals. I admit that I thought it was a cool thing but you might get tired pretty quick on these vocals. The vocals are most of the times harsh, shrieking and raspy, if there was a bit more grunting or growling it would’ve been a more interesting material.
MY CONCLUSION
That would be it; this was a really good album but not a great one. I think that this album had some great thrash elements like the catchy guitar and drum work, plus the black-metallish vocal work. The album had a pretty catchy and heavy overall material but it got a bit uninteresting or boring the more I listened to it, I think that the guitar work was one reason why the album got boring but that’s just me. I don’t know what bands who might sound similar to this band but I will recommend this album and band to thrash-metal people. Death-metal people might check this out but if you are more into death than thrash my might find this a bit uninteresting. Thanks for taking time to read this review and I hope this has been a good guidance.
RECOMMENDED TRACKS
-- Call Of The Coven
-- On A Black Horse Thru Hell
-- The Devil’s Triangle
This album will be given a 3/5
