Originally written by Jason Lawrence.
For a few years in a row starting in the late 90’s, Witchery was unstoppable. Thrash was at a point where its legions of aging practitioners had yet to reunify en masse, kids weren’t playing it and the stuff from Sweden some people were calling thrash had little to do with it. So when Witchery burst onto the scene in 1998 with their debut barn burner–and likely best album–Restless & Dead, a lot of people took notice. Maybe it was the awesome cover art depicting skeletal mascot Ben Wrangle rising from the grave, “Whorns” held high to the full moon. Maybe it was all the nearly-naked fetish models posing as nuns and vampire hunters. Most likely, it had everything to do with their patented, tongue-in-cheek, blackened thrash attack.
One has to wonder if they didn’t take Paul Baloff’s resounding cry of “bang your head as if up from the dead” a tad too seriously. Combining elements from influences such as Mercyful Fate, Accept and Destruction, the present and former members of Seance, Satanic Slaughter, The Haunted and even Mercyful Fate themselves created one hell of a fun band to listen to. Their sense of humor and 80’s metal influences were a breath of fresh air at the time. As for the Halloween connection, this band was all about campy horror influences. They had songs about pretty much every horror movie theme you can imagine, from werewolves and demonic possession to satanic covens and the grim reaper. This was a band that clearly had a vision for what they wanted to do, even if the candle of their quality and success would unfortunately only burn brightest from 1998-2001.
Being that these guys were one of the first bands I got into from the 90’s Scandinavian metal explosion, I remember them very fondly. It seemed like everyone was jerking each other off about how cool Dimmu Borgir was at that point, so a band with black metal influences that actually played riffs and said “fuck off!” to overblown keyboard usage was serious business. Getting to see them on their U.S. tour with The Haunted (before that band descended into the far reaches of the Realm of Sucking Ass) is still one of the best concert-going experiences I’ve ever had. When Toxine took the stage in his modified corpse paint, wearing a plethora of metal stakes and a wooden mallet, I can still remember the jittery feeling of excitement I had. There really aren’t many bands like‘em, and I can’t think of many better albums than Restless & Dead to listen to on Halloween while chugging whiskey in your favorite graveyard and howling at the moon. Do the fucking W!
