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WITCHGÖAT “Serpent Hordes”
WITCHGÖAT “Serpent Hordes”
By Dr. Abner Mality
It was only a matter of time before a band took the two most popular “metal” words and made a name out of them. I was expecting a band called WITCHGÖAT to sound like cavernous cave man death metal or evil German speed metal. Instead, “Serpent Hordes” brings us a remarkably advanced and well done burst of melodic blackened death with a heavy DISSECTION influence.
Even more amazing, WITCHGÖAT is from El Salvador, not exactly a hotbed of such music. But they play it with a lot of conviction and talent. After a typical but not entirely useless intro, “Ophidian Will” demonstrates fierceness and a firm hand on the blackened melo-death style. The production is clean and crisp, not raw or swampy at all. The title track really brings the DISSECTION vibes to life while “Lesser Shadows” does have some of the speed metal madness of early DESTRUCTION in it. P. Scyther’s vocals are right out of the late 90’s Swedish black metal movement while drummer E. Driller bangs away with a real vengeance.
“Requiem For Myself” surprises with its all acoustic flourish while WITCHGÖAT tries their hand at more epic compositions with “Storming The Walls Of Eternity” and “Nyctophiliac” and does surprisingly well. The only real dud is the 3 minute plus outro, which is just plain unnecessary.
You wouldn’t think you’d hear Swedish style blackened death coming from the jungles of El Salvador, but WITCHGÖAT proves you wrong with “Serpent Hordes”. This is a very self-assured piece of work.
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