HELLWITCH
HELLWITCH “Annihlational Intercention”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Somebody get a mop and clean up my brains, because HELLWITCH has blown them clear out of my skull with “Annihilational Intercention”. It is literally mind-blowing that this band has been in existence in one form or another for almost 40 years and barely even managed a cult reputation. Is it too late for them to play catch up? Probably, but it sure won’t be for lack of intensity.
This is just a completely insane blast of truly old school American death metal, as wild and unrestrained as anything from the Golden Age. How band leader Pat Ranieri can play guitar at this level of craziness and still scream like a banshee in hell defies logic. From the first minute of this record to the last, the fury never lets up. Songs are impossibly fast and wild, scorching solos shoot out of Ranieri’s guitar like bullets from an AK-47. This is death metal along the lines of the first MORBID ANGEL album, POSSESSED, DEICIDE, early PESTILENCE and NOCTURNUS. Super fast, very technical, with a feeling of reckless abandonment that the genre has been missing.
A waterfall of arpeggios brings “Solipsistic Immortality” into being and then raging speed cuts in and never looks back. Even more crazed is the followup “Delegated Disruption”...the technicality of ATHEIST with the speed and evil of DEICIDE. Even the brief instrumental “Sorcerous Imminence” has a huge, majestic sound to it. The longest track “Anthropophagi” brings a small bit of relief with an acoustic bit but it doesn’t last long as the song is as brutal as any on the record. “Torture Chamber” ends the album with cyclonic velocity and Ranieri’s maniacal screams match the intensity of the music.
Not only is this a great example of true death metal in the grand tradition, but it brings a welcome touch of insanity back to a genre where much of it seems done by rote. All hail HELLWITCH!