Bewitcher is back with a third album!
Still anchored into their universe since 2013, Infernal Magus of Nocturnal Alchemy (bass) and Unholy Weaver of Shadows & Incantations (guitar/vocals, ex-Dominus Morti) recruited Aris Wales (drums, Order of the Gash) for the release of Cursed Be Thy Kingdom.
If you never heard about the band, don’t let you be cheated by Ashe, the soft and melancholic introduction. Even if it is quite seizing, it will quickly let place to the album and its sharp riffs, beginning with Death Returns… The song pours its blackness supported by a good dose of groove and uninterrupted obstinacy, dubbed by raucous vocals, like on Satanick Magick Attack, a song that borrows a lot from Heavy/Speed Metal. Piercing leads get out of this both accessible but catchy rhythmic, while Electric Phantoms plays on unholy tones and this contagious energy to captivate crowds. Mystifier (White Night City) melts again the band’s music two aspects, namely the catchy side and occult influences to give an aggressive but very rich output, that the band’s lovers already know very well, while Cursed Be Thy Kingdom releases all the musicians’ rage. The song is incisive and violent, then the trio slows down again with the hooking Valley of the Ravens, multiplying the Gothic and horrific influences with some samples as well as haunting Blues influences. Pure energy surfaces again with Metal Burner, a fast and sharp song, that counts on leads before the long The Widow’s Blade, a song that gathers the band’s most rageous influences to make a song that will be a perfect pick for live shows to make the crowd move. Sign of the Wolf, the last song, is a song that can be both a good choice to catch a crowd into this gloomy and fascinating universe, as well as to reveal all the flavour of the band’s influences duality.
Whatever you like in Metal music, Bewitcher knows to do it. Cursed Be Thy Kingdom melts unholy, groovy, dark, soaring and sharp influences to offer us songs that we can listen as much as we want to.
80/100