Masters of infernal metal since their inception 25 years ago, Swedish blackened thrash metal pioneers WITCHERY release their new single and video for the album’s fierce opening track “Witching Hour”. Watch the video, which was directed by Martin Hultgren / Gryt Film AB, with post-production handled by Eduardo Hidalgo / E2h Design Studio & Maciej Pieloch / MPieloch.com, below.
WITCHERY mastermind and guitarist Jensen states about “Witching Hour”, “And so, the ‘Witching Hour’ has finally arrived…This, the opening track of the new concept album “Nightside”, kicks off a story of unreal nightmares, demonic possession, inquisitional witches’ trials and then dives into the really dark stuff, haha. First try for us to create a concept album and we are very happy with how it turned out. We worked hard at creating songs that followed the dramaturgy of the story (which was more work than we ever realized, but a challenged we accepted and overcame!). We’re pretty sure that ‘Popecrusher’, and now ‘Witching Hour’, will pique your interest in hearing the full story of “Nightside”!”
“Witching Hour” follows WITCHERY’s first single for the razor-sharp track “Popecrusher”, which was previously released in an animated video clip created by Eduardo Hidalgo & Maciej Pieloch / MPieloch.com & E2H Design Studio. Both tracks are off of the band’s forthcoming 8th studio album Nightside, which is set for release on July 22ndworldwide via Century Media Records.
Following 2017’s much acclaimed I Am Legion album, Nightside was recorded with the WITCHERY line-up consisting of Jensen (Guit., The Haunted / ex Seance), Rickard Rimfält (Guit., Seance), Angus Norder (Vox, Nekrokraft), Victor Brandt (Bass, Dimmu Borgir / ex Entombed A.D.) – who now officially replaces longtime bassist Sharlee D’Angelo – and Chris Barkensjö (Drums, LIK / ex Kaamos). The album was once again mixed and produced by Daniel Bergstrand (Behemoth, In Flames, etc.) and includes artwork by Andreas “Diaz” Pettersson, which can be seen above.
Nightside tracklisting:
1. Witching Hour
2. Don’t Burn the Witch
3. Storm of the Unborn
4. Er steht in Flammen
5. Popecrusher
6. Left Hand March
7. Under the Altar
8. Churchburner
9. Crucifix and Candle
10. A Forest of Burning Coffins
11. Nightside
Jensen adds, “I started to write this album without any general direction of idea in mind, but somewhere in the middle of the writing process I remembered that I’ve always wanted to do a concept album, so I decided to give it a shot. Little did I know that writing a concept album puts a lot more pressure on each and every song turning out great. This might seem a norm (and I guess it is in some way) but usually you write 12-14 songs and choose the songs that turned out the best after they’ve been mixed and mastered. Sometimes even what you thought was going to be the first song on the album gets pushed to somewhere else because another track turned out sounding more like an opening track. Also, out of those 12-14 songs you can choose to keep a few a bonus tracks. With a theme album, songs can’t swap places. The story needs to work (no one wants to do a new “The Elder”!), so the opening track really needs to hold up as an opening track etc., thus the extra pressure of “no surprises” after its all recorded. The album tells a story of demonic nightmares, unexplainable pregnancy, witch trails and an escape from the Old Country to the colonies in the west and what happens once the child is born. Guests on this album is, for starters, our permanent guest of honor Hank Shermann, but also guest solos by Maciek Ofstad of Kvelertak and Simon Johansson of Wolf (also the studio owner of SolnaStudio where we recorded the album. We also had the honor of having Jeff Walker of Carcass do guest vocals on the song “A Forest of Burning Coffins”. All in all, we are very happy with how the album turned out and with again thrilled over Daniel Bergstrand’s killer production…”
Nightside features brief guest appearances on vocals by Jeff Walker (Carcass, on “A Forest of Burning Coffins”, as well as guest guitar leads by Hank Shermann (Mercyful Fate, on “Left Hand March”), Simon Johansson (Wolf, on “Crucifix and Candle”) and Maciek Ofstad (Kvelertak, on “Don’t Burn the Witch”).
Nightside will be released in the following formats: jewelcase CD, 180g. vinyl LP (either as black vinyl or as limited transparent red vinyl of 500x copies via CM Distro/Mailorder) and as digital album. Pre-orders for Nightside are available, HERE.
WITCHERY is Angus Norder (vocals), Jensen (rhythm guitars), Rickard Rimfält (rhythm and solo guitars), Victor Brandt (bass guitar), and Chris Barkensjö (drums).