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Hellwitch: Syzygial Miscreancy
08/11/12 || Sokaris
Hi, my name’s Sokaris and I’d like to tell you about Hellwitch’s “Syzygial miscreancy” and not just because that shit would basically win you a game of Scrabble.
“Who the hell are Hellwitch”, I’ve decided you’ve asked me?
I’d ask you to pull up a chair but seeing as this is the Interwebs (copyright Al Gore) you’re likely already sitting, covered with only your undergarments and Cheeto dust. Moving on, Hellwitch are an underappreciated gem buried in the fertile soil of the Florida death metal scene. They blended technical thrash (think Coroner, Sadus and the like) with blistering death metal (throw Atheist and Morbid Angel into the pot with the aforementioned bands) and came off even more bizarre and spastic than this introduction. Energy abounds. Patrick Ranieri somehow handles double duty with guitar and vocals, smacking the shit out of the frets and employing deadly razor-sharp picking to invoke otherworldly riffing that sounds like if old Voivod gained more focus and the desire to beat ass.
It all moves along in a blur; manic shredding, disgusted sounding vocals, blasts and the occasional bizarre time signature shift. Occasionally a groove is settled into, but even the mid-paced moments have a progressive quirkiness to them. See “Sentient transmography” where what sounds like a planet implosion leads into a riff that, though still in 4/4, goes through some apeshit syncopation every other measure. Throw in some vocals that early Carcass would approve of and you have the “catchy part” of a Hellwitch song.
Like Linda Blair in the Exorcist, this is ugly, mean and likes to twist the fuck around. Cue up “Mordrival dissemination” and you’re treated to an ominous marching intro that leads into an updated and trickier sounding Destruction section, ultimately culminating into an ascent into dissonance. Of course, things have just begun as tremolo picking backs shrieked, hideous falsettos given a sense of brutality with their placement alongside blastbeats and pitchshifting. An otherworldly phaser graces the thrashy segue that brings us back to relative normalcy, just to hit the brakes and whiplash you into Groove City. Let’s give the bass a little room to lay down some melody and lead into an a neoclassical section with acoustic guitar. That old trick, right? Just for good measure, Hellwitch trashes your ass once more to cap things off. I’ve just taken you through the six minute audio journey of one of the band’s songs from “Syzygial miscreancy”, think you can keep up?
This is really a one-of-a-kind album from a time when a lot of amazing death/thrash bands were getting left behind in favor of the more obviously forward-thinking acts. However, Hellwitch weren’t old-fashioned in their work in the slightest. They probably weirded out their fair share of metal dudes, in the death scene or otherwise. Their roots reached back deep, back when the earliest of Florida’s death elite were releasing demos and shared stages with the cream of the crop but tend not to get mentioned alongside even the second-tier bands of the scene. They were likely just ahead of and outside of their time and fell into obscurity. Fortunately nothing stays buried forever and Displeased Records brought this album back into the public in 2009, tacking on the band’s 80’s demos for good measure. These bonus tracks add a ton of value to an, admittedly, way too short full length.
In whatever form you can find it, (“Syzgial miscreancy” was also released with the 1993 Terraasymmetry EP as “Final approach”) this is a worthy addition to any seeker of wild as hell from the era that ushered in death metal as the successor to thrash.
- Information
- Released: 1990
- Label: Wild Rags Records
- Website: www.hellwitch.com
- Band
- Patrick Ranieri: vocals, guitars
- Tommy Mouser: bass
- Joe “Witch” Schnessel: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. The ascent
- 02. Nosferatu
- 03. Viral exogence
- 04. Sentient transmography
- 05. Mordrival dissemination
- 06. Pyrophoric seizure
- 07. Purveyor of fear
