If you run any kind of internet website related to metal, you occasionally get cool emails from folks around the world. Recently I heard from a guy named Brian Straight, who in the early 1990s formed a death metal band called “Witch-Hunt” based out of Richmond, VA. A small label called Lost Apparitions Records has just published a retrospective of their underground recordings. The same week as I heard from Brian, I had just moved to Richmond, VA to start a job teaching music theory at the University of Richmond. Too good of a coincidence to pass up!

Witch-Hunt’s songs have a unique brand of melancholic aggression. The band’s guitar and vocal tone could be compared to demos and early albums by Nihilist/Entombed or Mayhem, but they have a somber restrained utterly beyond either of these. This gives the songs a sort of timeless feel that is reinforced by the lyrics and some of the synthesizer intros. I don’t know how this eternal quality was received when Witch-Hunt’s recordings were first made 20 or more years ago—but listening to this release in the present is an awesome experience. It’s a bit like picking up some gruesome obsolete weapon in a forgotten corner, blowing off the dust, and finding out that it’s still finger-splitting sharp.

Continue reading