BEWITCHER - DEEP CUTS & SHALLOW GRAVES

While it has been a couple of years since the stellar Cursed Be Thy Kingdom, apparently it'll be a while longer, until we get a new studio effort. In the meantime, here's an opportunity to dive deep into the early Bewitcher history, offering 17 cuts total, comprised of old demo cuts (a couple of which never made an appearance outside those original recordings), a pair of brand spanking new tunes and a rough cover of Mötley Crüe’s "Bastard". In the absence of anything new, this is manna to starving ears.

OK, a dozen of these '13-'15 compositions were packaged together previously, as Grand Rites Of The Wicked, a 2015 cassette compilation, limited to just 100 copies, on Heretic Fire Records, when the band was just a recording duo. Given the elusive nature (and limited fan base, at that time), not to mention the non-digital format, surely there's now a demand for vinyl/CD/streaming versions. Nine of these eventually were cut for the eponymous disc and two others are on the follow-up. Until now, "Hedgerider" has been exclusive to the aforementioned comp. Elsewhere, "Rebellion At The Gates Of Heaven" and "Trial Of Swords" have been unavailable, apart from the Wild Blasphemy demo (2013).

While hints of Midnight, Sodom, Venom and Motörhead can be heard sprinkled throughout the early Bewitcher catalog, the evolution of original ideas develops quickly. The tracklisting is essentially (although not completely) in reverse chronological order, beginning with the new stuff. First up is "Manifesting Darkness" a fuzz-induced, mid-tempo romp, sounding more refined than we last heard. By contrast, "Our Lady Of Speed", the other newbie, is recognizable as the gruff throat groove we've come to enjoy: "to revel in the Devil's heavy metal." Love the juxtaposition of the grimy, slightly over modulated "Bastard" to "Speed & Til You Bleed". 38 years earlier, the Crüe was hailed as an aggressive slice of metal, but once that first Betwitcher original blasts forth, shows just how far the genre has come and what constitutes "heavy" these days. Essentially a musical ode to the hooded/masked Ohioans.