Band:	Bewitcher
Album:	Under The Witching Cross
Style:	Blackened heavy metal, Blackened speed metal
Release date:	May 2019

01. Savage Lands Of Satan
02. Hexenkrieg
03. Under The Witching Cross
04. Heathen Woman
05. Too Fast For The Flames
06. In The Sign Of The Goat
07. Rome Is On Fire
08. Frost Moon Ritual

Whenever I give a speed/heavy metal album a shot and I'm met with some sub-par riffs and falsettos, I'm often wondering if I'm just not in the mood for cheesy speed metal. Then I put on Bewitcher's Under The Witching Cross and I'm reminded of how well it can actually work.

Bewitcher are a metal band and they love Satan. "But don't they all", you might ask. Fair point, but this brand of tongue-in-cheek spewing of witches and devils and inverted crucifixes is somewhat different from a lot of theological or truly blasphemous takes of a lot of extreme metal bands. Bewitcher are clearly having fun making this. And you will too.

The band's music is somewhat of a combination of Motörhead and Venom, with a bit of Judas Priest and Midnight for good measure. This is devil-worshiping speed metal stripped down to its most volatile form. I think I've already gotten this point across, so you'd know what to expect. Under The Witching Cross perfectly captures the sound of first have black metal as it was just emerging from NWOBHM. Simple and brief. Half an hour of hard hitting jams.

And if it wasn't obvious from the intro, they do a pretty damn good job at it. This type of sound doesn't work if it sounds like they're either taking themselves too seriously or not seriously enough. And the album is clearly self-aware and it doesn't care, containing a lot of punk attitude and energy. But at the same time, it's incredibly well written and performed, with catchy riffs and gnarly commanding vocals, with the instrumental part being more than just a few good riffs, and the solos and instrumental songs clearly show that. So it's fun enough to be fun, and with enough substance to be worth re-listening.

There isn't really that much more to it. It's simple. It's fun. It's evil. It slays.